The Rule of Luck (3 page)

Mr. Pennyworth held up an empty glass cylinder the size of my thumb, secured with a gray screw-on cap, and smiled. His teeth were feral looking, and I revised my earlier opinion—you might forget most of Mr. Pennyworth, but you would never forget his teeth.

“Of course,” he said. “Here it is.”

I could only imagine the look on my face. “Must be one hell of a tube.”

“If I thought you were an idiot, I would never have agreed to this shell game. It's smart-matter in an inert gaseous state. It reacts when exposed to air.”

My eyes widened. “How? I want to fix my blacklisted status, not kill the Arbiter.”

Mr. Pennyworth merely blinked. “This will induce an effect similar to mild intoxication, without impairing mental or physical faculties. Anyone exposed becomes susceptible to suggestion. The effect will last twenty minutes, which should be long enough to convince the Arbiter to modify your status.”

“Can't you just snipe in and change my status? Isn't that what you do?”

Again, the long blink. “I do all manner of things. And yes, I could snipe in if I had enough time and you enough gold notes. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. One Gov's echo-wall is virtually impenetrable. If I did snipe in, I'd have to nullify their AI queenmind. One wrong move would have a drone army replicating the data and laying so many false trails, we'd both be en route to a Phobos penal cell before I found my way back. This way, the changes will be legitimate in the database, made by the one responsible for them—the Arbiter.”

I had to admit it was elegant, but my gut wasn't reassuring me of success one way or the other. “We're breathing the same air. Won't I be infected too?”

“Yes. It will enable you to make your points all the more convincing. I suspect it will be a veritable Isis Falls of tears and sob stories from all parties by the time we're done.”

I refused to rise to the sarcastic bait. Isis Falls is the highest and most dramatic waterfall on Venus's Ishtar Terra. It was even said that its crushing power could produce diamonds. Impressive, but nobody needed that kind of grief.

“What about you? If we all lose our minds, how does that help me?”

Mr. Pennyworth did the blink thing again; the man was a wealth of physical tics. It made me wonder what sort of t-mods he had. No doubt my tech-hating family would lose their minds if they met him—not that they ever would, I reflected.

“I won't be affected.”

“It's nice you're so confident.”

“I am,” he said, and left it at that.

“What if we don't get a human Arbiter? I requested one, but I've put in so many petitions in the past, we may only get AI access. How—?”

“Ms. Sevigny, nothing is foolproof. What we're doing today is a criminal act. Its very nature lends itself to complications. I can't provide the guarantees you want. However, I find it disconcerting you're calling my professionalism into question. I predict a high degree of success, provided you follow my instructions.”

“I know. I just need this to work. If it doesn't…” My voice trailed. I couldn't think about failure. “It has to work.”

Sometimes I wondered about the convoluted road that had brought me to this moment. Normal people didn't consort with criminals. Desperation was the usual mode of transport. And thanks to my family's seedier connections, Mr. Pennyworth had dropped into my life. I shouldn't have needed him if things had taken their regular course. If I hadn't fallen desperately in love five years ago with a man I thought held my future in his hands, I'd never have applied for a reproduction approval permit—the gut feeling again, prodding me to act on impulses I normally wouldn't consider. Without that push, I wouldn't have learned about my fertility blacklisted status. I also wouldn't have lost the man I thought loved me unconditionally.

“You and the father-elect must be very desperate to have a child.”

I almost laughed, but bitterness and despair wouldn't let me. “The father-elect doesn't know I'm here.”

“Ah, I see. He wants a child and you're afraid he'll leave you if he knows you're blacklisted.”

At that, I did laugh since it was better than crying. Were the problems I thought so secret and painful as common as dirt? “Actually, that's already happened once. I'm just trying to keep history from repeating itself.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

Gods, did I have to explain everything? “I was with someone before. We were young and in love, and I thought he was
the one
. I had this feeling he might propose so I checked on my fertility status, just to see what I needed to do to get the fertility inhibitor removed. Kids are important in my family and I wanted to be ready. That's when I found out about my blacklisted status. I told him because I didn't think it would matter. After all, we loved each other. I assumed we'd figure it out together. Instead, he left me. End of story.”

“What happened to him?” came the relentless follow-up question.

“He found someone less complicated than me. They moved overseas, to Bolivia I think. They had a baby. A boy. He's two now.” I surreptitiously swiped at my eyes. Only one tear. That had to be some kind of world record.

A beat of silence, then: “So you're lying to your current partner?”

I glared at Mr. Pennyworth. “Not that it's any of your damn business, but I don't even know if he likes kids. I just feel like I have this sword hanging over my head and I want it gone. I don't want to be that lost, pathetic woman who gets left all over again because she isn't good enough. I want control over my own life. Maybe I don't want a baby right this second, but I want the option there if I choose it. Right now, for reasons I don't understand, I'm blacklisted. So if he brings up the subject, do I say ‘Sorry, I forgot to mention I can't apply for the permit to have the fertility inhibitor removed because some official somewhere decided I'm ineligible to reproduce?' I already know that won't go over well.”

“So you're doing this for the potential in the relationship.”

“I don't think I need to answer any more questions, unless it's somehow going to help you do a better job,” I said pointedly.

That earned me another long blink. “Forgive me for asking.”

What I refused to say, and he had no right to know, was I also had unresolved parental issues. Everyone thinks they can do a better job than their own parents. Yet what happens when your mother dies, and your father disappears because you look too much like your mother and that resemblance upsets him and makes him insane? How does that twist a person's insides, stirring up a murky soup of resentment but also determination to fix the past?

We fell into an uncomfortable silence and I spent the remainder of the ride watching the cityscape drift by out the tinted window, taking in the lush greenery mixed carefully with urban sprawl. Seeing the city like this, it was easy to appreciate why Nairobi was considered the Star of the East and the gateway to Africa. Thanks to its altitude the city had managed to flourish in spite of itself. Somehow Nairobi had been spared the worst of the chaos and magically come out ahead of the disasters that rocked the rest of the planet.

As if sensing my discomfort, the Y-Line only stalled twice, for a total delay time of ten minutes. Thank the gods for small mercies. The pod docked soon on the other side of the city and we disembarked onto the gray-tiled receiving platform in Karen. It was noticeably dirtier than the launch platform in my division. Ironically, Karen wasn't far from the largest slum in the country, if not the entire continent. Reclamation projects for the Kibera slum came and went every time it was an election year. Local One Gov representatives always promised to clean it up, threw gold notes at the problem, and then gave up when the residents resisted change. We could build a space port on the Moon, put a sunshade around Venus, alter its rotation and give it a moon, anchor two space elevators to the Earth, and even terraform Mars, but we couldn't touch a thousand-year-old slum in the heart of Africa. I wasn't sure if that was something to be proud of or not.

The Mayfair Fertility Clinic lay on the slum's outskirts, not far from the Y-Line platform. Mr. Pennyworth and I waded through people going about their business, drooping a little in the humidity. Well, I drooped. Mr. Pennyworth soldiered on as if the weather was a nonissue. This man was a creepy enigma I didn't want to unravel.

Along the pedestrian walkway the storefronts grew shabbier. Not shabby-chic or whatever trendy look the CN-net target ads told us were popular, but downright shabby. People loitered with nothing better to do than stand with their hands in their pockets. Refuse piles grew, their stink perfuming the air. We passed the occasional gang sign, and anyone with business in the area hurried about it at a brisk clip, except Mr. Pennyworth. If he rushed, it was only to keep pace with me.

The clinic stood out from a row of decrepit office buildings. It was oddly cathedral-like, loaded with Gothic spires and stained-glass windows. It might have looked ethereal and beautiful if it wasn't so out of place. Bars on the windows, armed guards, and the electrified barbed wire fence around the perimeter didn't help. Ridiculous One Gov spending at its all-time best—put one of the most significant government facilities near one of the seediest areas of the city, pretty it up, then watch the fireworks. It was a miracle the place still stood.

We approached the first checkpoint at the outer gate of barbed wire and mesh. I felt a trickle of nervous sweat roll down my back. I needn't have worried, as Mr. Pennyworth rested his left hand on the graphic interface and One Gov's citizen chip at the base of his thumb gave up his basic statistics and the nature of the appointment. The interface beeped, and he walked through the gate. I followed, relieved I didn't have to do the same. I wasn't chipped, not physically at any rate. I could blame my family for that mess too. My citizen chip was in my c-tex bracelet. It made life damned inconvenient whenever I ran the c-tex over the reader and the thing refused to scan. I probably wasted more time trying to get my wrist to beep than I did sleeping and eating put together.

We continued along the sidewalk and up the clinic's front steps. The breeze picked up, bringing Kibera's stench with it. I fought not to gag at the odor of raw sewage while my eyes started watering.

“You're doing well, Ms. Sevigny,” Mr. Pennyworth murmured. “Only two more checkpoints, then the Arbiter.”

I nodded, swiping my eyes. I looked back to those still outside the gate. The crowd appeared to be gathering steam. I could hear singing and saw a few e-thought posters waving. Hardly a surprise. Someone was always protesting in front of these facilities. The Shared Hope program was so significant and vital to the survival of the human race, the only way anyone got real media attention was to protest at a fertility clinic somewhere in the tri-system. Even if it was something trivial like a problem with sanitation pickups or a street name being changed, fertility clinics were always the protesters' target. It didn't make sense, but it got you attention.

“Think they'll close the clinic for the day?” I nodded in the protesters' direction. “I'd prefer we didn't have to do this more than once. My nerves couldn't handle it.”

“You also couldn't afford it. I anticipate everything will go according to plan.”

I took what reassurance I could from his vague answer and we passed the next two checkpoints with ease. Pennyworth's chip was scanned again, and we waded through a weapons detector that checked for organic compounds and tech assaults. I worried about the smart-matter, but when no alarms sounded I offered up a silent prayer of thanks to any god paying attention.

Finally, we were met by a human who escorted us to the Arbiter's office. Arbiter Black was the name we were given. It meant nothing, merely a pseudonym. I'd been through this process enough to know the drill.

Our guide was a tall young woman, reed-thin with ebony skin and luxurious black hair that bounced around her shoulders. Strong white teeth and blue eyes gave her a startling beauty you didn't often see even in this age of genetic modifications. She seemed wasted in such a worthless One Gov outpost. Mr. Pennyworth watched her ass sway as she walked.

“Third generation MH Factor, Mars model,” he commented to me. “Good work, but better exists. The center of gravity is off. It will be corrected in the next batch.”

Okay, so there was more to his gaze than I thought. At least it gave me something else to think about besides my own predicament.

We followed Miss Third Generation with Gravitational Problems down the dull gray hall. It was as if only the cathedral shell remained. The rest of the building had been gutted and filled with ugliness. Not even the stained-glass windows brightened the hall.

She led us to an office and told us to wait. It was empty except for a long table, a data portal, and a handful of mismatched chairs. I sat in the first chair, which was hard, lumpy, and the color of faded rust. I turned to Mr. Pennyworth, but he held up a finger and shook his head. No, the gesture said. Not yet.

So I sat in helpless suspension, hands in my lap, not sure what to do and afraid to talk. Mr. Pennyworth did the same, although he looked more at ease.

An immeasurable amount of time later, the door opened. My eyes slid from Mr. Pennyworth to Arbiter Black. Male. Caucasian. Still looked like he had true youth. My spirits drooped. Damn. Why couldn't I have gotten a woman? A man wouldn't feel the same emotional tug of my sob story. I glanced at Mr. Pennyworth and saw the glass cylinder in his left hand. When I looked again, the cylinder had vanished. How long would it take until I felt the smart-matter's effects? How would I behave?

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the Arbiter said as he shook the hand Mr. Pennyworth extended, then reached out to me. I stood to meet him halfway. His voice was pleasant, and he smiled at us. That had to be a good sign. He seemed nice. Maybe this would work. If I spun my story right, with the extra push from the drug…maybe…