Middlegame

by Seanan McGuire

  The trouble with weapons is that they can be aimed in any direction. She sits on a lawn chair near the fence (the same chair Dodger, in another timeline, reclined in while Roger’s life fell apart; the chair where she ordered a reset of the universe to save him from the consequences of his parents’ choices) and pulls out her phone. The number she dials is found in no directory, listed in no database; even the phone company would have difficulty determining who owns it.

  Dodger, I’m sorry, she thinks, and raises the phone to her ear, and waits.

  There is a click. “Report,” says a voice.

  “Cheswich’s parents recognized Middleton as a biological relative as soon as he entered the home,” she says. “They asked whether the subjects were aware of their relation. The subjects replied in the affirmative. The subjects are growing closer but have not started showing any signs of second-stage reaction. They remain distinct individuals and do not appear to require separation. How do you want me to proceed?”

  Please don’t ask me to kill her parents, she thinks. Dodger is not her favorite person—Dodger is more a useful thing to her, and needs to stay that way, if her plan is to succeed—but that doesn’t mean Erin wants to make her an orphan. The stability of the Rooks has always been questionable. They are violent reactions adrift in a world filled with things for them to clash with, and they require the Jack Daws to keep them from exploding. Killing Dodger’s parents now might drive her away from Roger, and the consequences of that would be dire.

  “Continue to observe,” says the voice. “We’ll provide you with further instructions.” The line clicks again as the call terminates.

  Erin leans back in the chair and closes her eyes. One more hurdle has been cleared.

  This is going to get harder before it gets easier.

  Biology

  TIMELINE: 16:01 PST, DECEMBER 8, 2008 (NOT LONG AFTER).

  Roger and Dodger lie on their respective chairs, staring up at off-white ceiling tiles speckled with small, seemingly irregular holes.

  “How many?” asks Roger. He’s studiously not looking at the woman beside him, holding the needle that’s jammed into his arm. He asked for this, he knows he asked for this, but that doesn’t make the actual process any more pleasant.

  “Tiles or holes?” asks Dodger. Her blood has already been taken. She has a piece of tape holding a cotton ball to the bend of her elbow, and a juice box with a bendy straw. Oh, how he covets that juice box. He hasn’t wanted someone else’s treat so badly since grade school, when Miss Lewis (he will always remember Miss Lewis) would let them bring juice boxes from home for Friday story time.

  “Tiles.”

  “Sixty-four.”

  “Holes.”

  Dodger’s eyes dart for an instant, tracing the outlines of four separate tiles before she smiles serenely, sips her juice, and says, “Six thousand, two hundred and eight.”

  “Cool.” Roger closes his eyes. His perspective shifts and he’s looking at the ceiling through Dodger. There’s no color to appreciate here; just the cream, and the metal struts holding the tiles in place. “Did Smita tell you why we needed to come back in, or was this a mystery to you, too?”

  “Everything’s a mystery.” Dodger turns her face toward him.

  Seeing his own body from the outside is always disorienting. The change in focal perspective alone explains so much about why others react to his appearance the ways they do. The woman beside him is pulling out the needle, and his blood is so red, so violently, brilliantly red, that he isn’t sure whether he should be fascinated or disturbed.

  “Smita will be right with you,” says the woman, and heads for the door before either of them can ask her anything further.

  They are, temporarily, alone. “Hey, Dodge. You know how I’m color-blind?”

  “Only because you keep making me look at stuff for you.”

  “I like having colors to go with the words for them,” he says. “I was just wondering … is there anything funky about your eyes?”

  Dodger blinks. “You mean you never noticed?”

  “No…”

  “How far away from me are you right now? Based on what you remember of the room when we arrived, not on visual cues.” She shuts her eyes, taking visual cues out of the equation.

  “Okay, I’ll play,” says Roger. He reviews his mental floorplan of the room, and finally says, “About three feet, maybe? Maybe slightly more.”

  “Got it.” Dodger opens her eyes, still looking at him. “Now tell me how far.”

  Roger watches his body frown. “I … I can’t tell.”

  “I have poor depth perception,” says Dodger. “It’s why I run my bike into things so damn often. Once I know how big a space is, I’m fine, and I can do all my calculations on the fly. I used to pitch for the school baseball team, and I struck a lot of people out, because I knew the dimensions of the field. In a new space, without someone to feed me the numbers, I need to calculate them manually. It’s the one place where the numbers fail me.”

  “Huh,” says Roger.

  The door opens before he can say anything else. Smita steps inside, wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard. Roger opens his own eyes, leaving Dodger’s perspective behind, and both sit up straighter in their chairs, giving her their full attention.

  “You two are more trouble than you’re worth,” says Smita. She doesn’t bother with a preamble or a salutation: both would be a waste of her time and theirs. Thawing slightly, she adds, “Thank you for coming in again. I do appreciate it.”

  “It’s not a problem,” says Roger. “Though we don’t quite understand the reasons. Did something go wrong with our original samples?” Giving blood isn’t the most fun way to spend an afternoon, but blood tests require far less in the way of volume. The juice boxes are almost a formality. Which reminds him … “Also, where’s my juice box?”

  “I am the only adult on this campus,” says Smita. She opens a small fridge, extracts a juice box, and tosses it to Roger, who catches it one-handed. “There was nothing wrong with your original samples, exactly. We had a bit of confusion when we thought we’d cross-contaminated them. I want to review a few things with you.”

  “Do we have some sort of fatal disease?” asks Dodger. “If it’s sexually transmitted, only Roger has it, and I should be free to go.”

  “I love you too,” says Roger, and punches the straw into his juice box. He takes a swig. Artificial grape: yum.

  “You do not have a fatal disease, sexually transmitted or otherwise,” says Smita, after a pause to scowl at them. “What you have is a virtually identical antigen footprint, lacking the distinctive methylations we’d expect to find in … Not a single word I’ve just said made any sense to the pair of you at all, did it?”

  “Nope,” says Roger amiably. He’s lying. He knows all the words, if not the ways she’s putting them together. He also knows Dodger doesn’t. It’s easier this way.

  “Are we biologically related or not?” asks Dodger. She needs science to confirm the answer she already knows. Once science says it, it will become immutable fact, and right now, Smita is science. Smita holds their future in her hands.

  Smita laughs. It’s a strained sound: the laughter of a woman confronted with a question that can’t be answered in any simple way. “Dodger, if you told me you were identical twins, I might be inclined to believe you.”

  “We’re not identical,” says Roger. “There are certain physiological differences that have absolutely taken that off the table.”

  “I’m aware,” says Smita. “And yes, when we did the DNA analysis, we found that you are, in fact, biologically different genders, and you display the markers we’d expect to find given your general appearance. You understand that a DNA test is different from ‘getting a blood test,’ yes? Blood tests can rule out relation, but a DNA test is used to rule it in. We’ve been looking at the basic building blocks of what makes the two of you so goddamn annoying. I think I may be able to isolate the gene for ‘smartass’ b
ased on your DNA. I’ll win the Nobel Prize.”

  “Remember to thank us in your acceptance speech,” says Roger, and takes another drink.

  “Oh, believe me, you’ll get all the credit you deserve,” says Smita.

  “We know what a DNA test is,” says Dodger. “Did we mention how grateful we are that you agreed to do this? Because we’re super-grateful. So grateful that clearly Roger can’t even put it into words, which is sort of comic, if you stop to think about it.”

  Roger rolls his eyes and keeps drinking juice. For once, his input isn’t needed. It’s almost pleasant. He can just recline, wait for his blood sugar to recover, and listen to Dodger and Smita snipe at each other over someone else’s field of science. This is the sort of activity he could enjoy on a regular basis.

  “He’s refreshingly silent,” says Smita. “Let’s go back to your earlier samples: I don’t think anything happened to them. Based on the results, I think they were exactly what they were supposed to be. Some of the other students who helped me with the DNA tests wanted to be sure, so we needed more blood. More blood lets us run more tests. More tests lets us figure out whether you’re actually humans, or whether you’re Martians doing a very good job of impersonating humanity. My bet’s on ‘Martians,’ in case you wondered.”

  “We always assumed Midwich cuckoo,” says Roger.

  “We come in peace,” adds Dodger dryly.

  “I wish I could believe you,” says Smita. She leans against the counter, looking at them. Her expression is grave, but there’s interest in her eyes; she has a mystery. She has something to learn. Few things are more dangerous than a scientist with something to learn. “You asked me to perform a blood test because you wanted to know whether or not you were related. Out of the goodness of my heart, I refused, because it wouldn’t do any good, and agreed to run a series of DNA and antigen tests instead. You agreed to let me use your results in my research.”

  Finally, Roger lowers his juice box, eyes narrowing. “Why are you recapping for us?”

  “Because I want you to remember that you’ve consented to my using your test results in my research,” says Smita. The brightness in her eyes is increasing. She has the topic in her teeth now: prying it away from her might be impossible. “You asked if you were related. The answer is yes: yes, you are related. You’re close enough to biologically identical that your DNA may be able to tell us more about human development than I ever hoped to have at my fingertips.”

  Dodger sits up in her chair, quivering like a bird dog that’s scented prey. Roger is more relaxed, but there’s a sharpness to him now, a tightening of his posture and his expression that speaks to the potential for movement. Both of them are on edge.

  Smita is blissfully oblivious to the tension she’s creating. This is her field, this is her passion, and she’s going to ride it to the end. “The two known forms of twinning are identical and fraternal. There’s a school of thought which holds that in some cases identical twins may, due to chromosomal defects or other environmental conditions, wind up following divergent developmental paths, which could manifest as anything from different hair colors to different genders. We don’t have many subjects, but as a research point—”

  “You mean we could be some kind of weird mutants?” Roger’s voice is dangerously level.

  “Potentially,” says Smita.

  “So we’re related,” says Dodger.

  “Unquestionably,” says Smita. “You should really talk to the school paper. ‘Adopted siblings find each other on campus’ would make a great human-interest story. And we’d appreciate more blood in a month or so, of course.”

  “Right,” says Roger. He still sounds too calm for the situation; calm enough that anyone sensible would be worried about it. He stands, leaving his juice box behind, and offers his hand to Dodger. “A few people owe us money.”

  “Yeah,” she says, taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet. Unlike Roger, she sounds dazed: this is the logical outcome of the math she’s been doing, this is the only equation that makes sense, but the real world doesn’t always listen to the math, no matter how right the math technically is. The real world doesn’t care if she shows her work. “We can go for coffee.”

  “Smita, thank you,” says Roger. She’s been watching them sharply, and he can’t help wondering if she suspects, on some level, that things with the two of them aren’t quite right. Their blood told her more than he’d expected; she clearly speaks the language of plasma and platelet, which is one of the few languages truly alien to him. When he let her put a needle in his arm, he was hoping she’d be able to set Dodger’s mind at ease, no matter what the answer was. This is more precise, and more definite, than he could have guessed.

  “Don’t thank me,” says Smita. Her smile is packed with too many teeth. “I’m going to be coming to you for blood for the rest of our time here.”

  “And I’ll be happy to give it,” says Roger. “Just keep the juice boxes coming.”

  “Don’t worry,” says Smita. “After this, I’ll let you pick the flavors.”

  She stands and watches as the two of them leave, Dodger still holding Roger’s hand, like sisters have held on to their brothers since the beginning of time. It’s hard not to see them as a lifelong unit, when she sees them this way; it’s hard to believe that they ever questioned their relationship to one another. Anyone with eyes could see it.

  She’s so wrapped up in watching them go that she never glances toward the window; she doesn’t realize that they’re not alone. That’s a pity. It might have saved her life.

  * * *

  Smita and the other genetics grad students have space in the Life Sciences Annex, shoved off to the side, while the biologists and zoologists and their ilk occupy the main Life Sciences Building. There are other disciplines packed in here, taking lab space where they can get it: geologists in the basement, chemists on the third floor. Getting out of the building involves walking past a fossil pterodactyl, hanging from the ceiling with its hinged jaw gaping in an eternal, silent scream. Its fleshless wings are spread wide, like it’s about to swoop down on them, carry one of them away. Normally, Dodger likes to pause and acknowledge this piece of the deep past, which carries a thousand mathematical formulae in the petrified structure of its bones. Math takes something living, strips it down to its essentials, and then rolls forward into the future, not asking the thing what it wants. Math doesn’t care.

  Today, neither does Dodger. She lets Roger lead her down the hall and out into the cool afternoon. It’s early enough that the sky is light, but there are dark spots around the edges: sunset is coming. California Decembers aren’t long on light. They aren’t long on dry, either; there’s a storm hovering at the horizon, clouds rolling in almost at a pace with nightfall.

  There are people on the steps, students she doesn’t know, talking to each other like the world is the same now as it was an hour ago, as it will be in an hour. She could try to explain how wrong they are. Even if they were willing to listen, she doesn’t have the words. All she can find are numbers, and they don’t speak to most people the way they speak to her. So she keeps her mouth shut, and lets Roger lead her, down the stairs, across the quad, into the green of the trees that grow tall around the creek that flows through the middle of the campus.

  Whatever long-gone architect was responsible for the design of the UC Berkeley campus, whoever was put in charge of the seemingly impossible task of creating a school that would embrace its students and honor the land it was built on, they understood that people were people, and people would sometimes need to run and hide from one another. They grasped privacy in a way that’s honestly impressive, given how broad and open and institutional the campus sometimes seems. Together, Roger and Dodger walk under the trees, out onto a wooden path, and around a curve to a half-hidden bench. It will be wet for days after tonight’s rain, deluged by water first falling through and later trapped by the leaves above. For now, however, it’s the perfect place to stop.r />
  Dodger lets go of Roger’s hand first. It’s a small thing. It’s also the first time she’s been the one to move away without running. Normally, she’s the one who holds still while he goes, or the one heading for the horizon as fast as her legs can carry her. Here, now, she’s calm. Serene.

  Roger knows the words—shock, surprise, epiphany—but he doesn’t know how to put them in an order his sister (his sister, he has a sister, not just a weird quantum entanglement with a girl on the other side of the country, but a sister, someone whose blood knows his almost as well as his heart does) will be able to hear and understand. He supposes she’s stunned. He knows he’s stunned. The impulse to close his eyes and retreat into the space that exists between them is strong. He forces it aside. This is a real thing; this needs to be a real thing. He didn’t realize until this moment how badly he needs it to be a real thing, something spoken in the open air, something honest and concrete that he can put down between them, look at from all angles, and know for the truth. Real things are too important to entrust to quantum entanglement.

  The creek chuckles a few feet away, bound by the banks it will burst as soon as the rain arrives. A crow calls overhead and is answered by one of its cousins. The campus crows are all related. Just like we are, thinks Roger, and is stunned anew by how dizzying the idea is.