181
ANALOG
“Please. Is anybody here claiming that it was
found myself sitting across a table from some-
healthy? Did I ever claim that, even once? I
one like you. And that was just the practical
only said that it was my choice.”
reason.”
He has no answer for that.
He anticipates her next sentence. “You had
After a few seconds, she continues. “I
another.”
locked myself up most of the time because I’d
And he is not surprised to f ind that he
found that for me there was little tactical dif-
knows what it was; he just needs to hear her
ference between living in a crowd or in a cell.
say it.
When I was out, I was incapable of seeing peo-
“It surprised the life out of me, Draiken. But
ple except as hostiles or as non-combatants. I
even somebody incapable of trusting people,
couldn’t go anywhere out among the sheep
who feels shitty in their presence, who fears
without plotting some means of throwing the
them trying to hurt her and knows that if she
civilians into a panic, as cover for an escape.
doesn’t constantly watch herself she’s likely to
Just walking around, without any particular
hurt them, even somebody who feels poisoned
mission, I’d draw dotted lines from one ran-
by every stupid word they say, can still need
dom f igure to another, f iguring how best to
them. It can be enough to just know they’re
cut the throat of the one standing at point A, in
nearby, sometimes. Leaving that pod every
order to create confusion so I could make it to
once in a while, going to where the people
the person I’d push off a balcony at point B: all
were, was the only thing that kept me even re-
to cover me while I made it to point C, and be-
motely sane, and now your refusal to put your
yond. I couldn’t turn it off. I didn’t retreat to
old wars aside has taken that away from me,
sensory isolation because I was afraid. I locked
permanently.”
myself up, for years at a time, because I need-
He is silent for a long time, and then he says,
ed the goddamned rest.”
“I never thought of you as a social creature be-
He says, “You continued to work as profes-
fore.”
sional imposter. You didn’t have to do that.
“Apparently I am. More than you. You only
You could have gone somewhere outside the
need to keep tugging at loose ends.”
reach of anybody who could have found you.
Another long silence. Then he says, “I don’t
Some place without people, where you could
always recognize it in myself, Thorne, but I
have lived alone.”
honestly do tend to need a little bit more from
“That’s right,” she says, and here a fresh
humanity than that.”
strain of bitterness enters her demeanor, a
“You don’t show it well, Draiken. For all our
trapped and burning thing that must be a
talk about how broken I am, we’ve barely
source of constant pain for her. “But the chief
touched on all the ways you are, all the things
problem with f inding some unpopulated
that keep you rejecting a normal life. You don’t
desert and secreting yourself in some isolated
seem to recognize it, not at all, but your dam-
hole in the ground is that, if trouble comes any-
age is no less than mine. It just formed differ-
way, as it will, the only way out of that stupid
ent fault lines.”
hole is the same ladder you used to get in. Even
He doesn’t argue the point. “Is it safe for me
then, if you manage to get past the opposition
to attempt to join you?”
stationed at the entrance, you then become a
“You better.”
lone fugitive in the middle of all that surround-
He rises, crosses to the bed, and sits down
ing emptiness, the only person a second team
beside her. She doesn’t look at him, but she’s
needs to track down, before you have options
trembling so hard that he can feel it on the thin
again.
mattress. How odd, he thinks. In their travels
“I couldn’t exist in some isolated place with
they have been together on any number of
only a limited number of escape routes. I need-
beds. They’ve had angry sex, and they’ve had
ed a place with multiple ways out, and crowds.
relief sex; they’ve even had affectionate sex,
That meant civilization and that meant paying
and from time to time, he has to admit to him-
premium rates. Plus, I needed to continue up-
self, they’ve even had the sex of a man and a
dating contacts, continue putting away money
woman who should not live apart. But some-
in accounts I could access, continue to main-
thing critical has just changed in their relation-
tain the skills that would save me, the minute I
ship, something with the potential to alter
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
everything they’ve even been to one another,
capable of the emotion.”
into something f iner and more lasting. He
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
finds himself wishing that he’d obeyed any one
She lowered her eyes. “Maybe it won’t be so
of her prior urgings and put aside his need for
bad, now. Not if we try.”
closure.
“Maybe,” he said. “But that’s the trap, isn’t
He thinks something he’s thought before.
it?”
Devotion to lost causes is the enemy of hap-
She realizes what he’s doing almost as he
piness.
starts doing it, and struggles, once again a mor-
She rests her head on his shoulder and starts
tal enemy fighting for her life.
to weep.
But he stops when she’s unconscious, and
This too is something he’s seen from her be-
makes sure she lands gently.
fore. Fury doesn’t eliminate tears. It just makes
Afterward, he stands and spends all of thirty
them burn in a different way. He has seen her
seconds appraising her silent form.
weeping while trying to cut his throat. But
With all the tension gone from her facial
this, too, seems different, like she’s given her-
muscles, she looks like all sleeping people do,
self permission to fall to pieces and is now only
an innocent vessel free of crime or corruption.
waiting to see where those shards land.
She’s as beautiful as she arranged to be, her fea-
This is the closest he’s ever come to seeing
tures those of a woman who expected to wear
what she would have been like, what her life
this specific combination of attributes for the
would have been
like, had she never been re-
rest of her life, but the beauty is not one iota
cruited by her past masters. Had she spent her
more false because of that; more forlorn and
years as one of the common sheep whose
more desperate perhaps, given what he
naiveté she had such contempt for, and envied,
knows, but certainly not a lie.
she might have known dissatisfaction and the
Nor has he lied. He knows that now. He may
suspicion that she’d been meant for more, but
be a man who has always been able to walk
she never would have been this lost, this bro-
away from love, but that has never made him
ken.
less vulnerable to its promises.
Her voice is almost inaudible behind the sud-
He’s genuinely devastated.
den trip-hammer pounding of his heart. “I was
Part of him wants to stay with her.
serious when I said that I could love you, if it
But the maxim he coined a minute or so ago
came to that.”
is also true in its obverse.
“I know.”
Happiness is also the enemy of lost causes.
She presses: “Do you think you could love
And so he turns his back and leaves her be-
me?”
hind, forever.
He says, “I might already.”
The landscape he finds outside is much dif-
“You don’t know?”
ferent than the one he saw only a few minutes
“I’ve always been an overly analytical man. I
ago. He now sees Elba in its entirety, from the
measure things, even the things that should
central spire in its aloof disconnect to all the
never be quantif ied. Whenever I feel some-
suffering taking place below, to the array of lit-
thing that might be love, my immediate re-
tle cottages all lined up like the prison cells
sponse is to dissect it, peeling the onion’s
they really are, identical and insulting to hu-
layers until there’s nothing left to examine.”
man dignity, each the home of a private and
“Then stop dissecting it,” she said. “Do you
isolated misery. A number of their residents
think you could love me?”
wander the empty spaces between them, their
“Yes,” he admits. “I think I could.”
pale faces stricken, their eyes searching the
“You never said even that much. All those
dusty air for deliverance in the form of another
other times I asked.”
human being. A couple of them, an old man
“You were an enemy, once. I never thought
and a wan-faced young woman, must be new,
it was an appropriate thing to say, except to
because they’re still constantly crying for help.
manipulate you in ways you did not deserve to
The young woman in particular is enough to
be manipulated.”
break his heart. “Oh, God! Anybody! Some-
She regards him with something like won-
body answer me! Please!”
der. “Of the two of us, you might be the one in-
Draiken aches for some way to seize her or
BLURRED LIVES
183
ANALOG
any of the other prisoners, and cry some form
sional praise. It all feels like my own idea. On
of aff irmation in a voice that can be heard: I
an intellectual level, I know I should resent it,
see you. I hear you. I’m one of you. I won’t let
but I’m honestly not capable of being both-
you rot here.
ered.”
He knows this to be futile. She won’t hear
He says, “What if I asked you to remember
him.
the free woman you once were, and what she
A familiar shape, larger than the others,
would have thought if she could see you
emerges from the mob and approaches. It is
now?”
Edifice. He had almost forgotten how large she
“She can see me now,” Edifice says. “I’m the
is; an immensity he does not feel physically up
same person, with different points of refer-
to fighting. He knows he will fight her, how-
ence. Even if she would have killed herself to
ever, even to the point of his own death, if it
avoid ending up this way, which is likely, she
comes to that . . . and as she draws near, he
also lived outside this and could not know that
shifts his balance, prepared to make her lose a
to me it feels no different. To the me that exists
drop a blood for every drop she rips from his
now, my condition is only a guarantee of daily
veins.
happiness. Let me ask you something a lot of
But instead, she stops just outside of attack
people who’ve had the Bettelhine treatment
distance. “Just you?”
ask, of those like you who think it’s so horri-
“For now, at least. She’s out cold, in there. It
ble: why do people like you and Thorne find it
was a near thing.”
so much better to be free but miserable?”
Edifice nods. “I’m not surprised. I was bet-
There are any number of things he could say
ting on her.”
to that, all of which would emerge in soaring
“She was formidable enough to make that a
rhetoric, and all of which would likely taste
reasonable supposition. Are we done?”
like ashes.
“Almost. He’s waiting for you. Come with
So he remains silent as Edifice summons the
me.”
spire elevator, as she joins him inside, and as
They amble toward the central spire, his pri-
they ascend to the saucer-shaped control room
or wariness of Edif ice dissipating like a light
where he saw Silver last.
spring rain. Far from enemies, they’re almost
Above, he f inds the chamber unchanged,
companions now, brethren in the family of hu-
down to the reptilian presence of Silver him-
man beings marked by Silver’s machinations. It
self, who sits at a table before a mouth-water-
might not last long, given the untrustworthy
ing meal that seems beyond the old man’s
nature of the ground on which they walk; for
fading powers of consumption. He has grown
all he knows, he might be only minutes away
thinner and paler and frailer in the time it’s tak-
from having to battle her to the death. But it
en for the wager to play out. His neck has
won’t happen immediately, and while they
weakened, and his head now has a noticeable
know a truce, he does not consider himself
list to one side. But the man’s smile is still pow-
foolish for imagining a certain empathy in her
erful, still predatory, even as it also displays
bearing.
something that is downright obscene on his
He feels comfortable enough to ask her for a
corrupt features: personal warmth.
confidence. “What’s it like for you?”
“Congratulations
, sir. Splendidly done. Have
“What?”
a drink.”
“The Bettelhine process. The one that made
Draiken crosses the room and, overcome
you his loyal servant.”
with a weariness deeper than anything suf-
“That.” She shrugs. “I don’t want to disap-
fered by limbs, sits opposite him.
point you, but I have no basis for comparison.”
The food is tempting after the tasteless peo-
“You’re his slave.”
ple chow Draiken was provided down below,
“From the perspective of someone on the
but he does not touch it, because he does not
outside, certainly. From mine, everything I do
trust it.
feels natural. I take personal satisfaction in do-
“I’ve won.”
ing what he says. I go to bed content for hav-
“So you have,” Silver replies. “I will make no
ing served him and wake looking forward to
attempt to argue that, or to deprive you of
serving him some more. I glory in his occa-
your fair reward.”
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
“You will free all the people below, Thorne
to my satisfaction that the way out was not a
included.”
physical location, I knew that another shoe
“Of course,” the old man says, as if this is the
had to drop. Once Thorne showed up, I im-
most evident thing in the world. “There is no
mediately placed among my working theories
reason to keep them, in any event. I’ve
the near-certainty that she was working with
arranged to stay alive long enough to see this
you.”
play out, but by inclination, I will be dead in
“I see. And when,” Silver asks, “did you get
days and will no longer have any use for exper-
the rest of it?”
imental subjects. My backers can always obtain
“Not long afterward. Everything she said
replacements.”
was designed to advance the cause of me sur-
“You were not lying about wanting to die?”
rendering to our circumstances, and accepting
“No, sir, I was not. I’m tired, Draiken—not
that the best I could hope for was giving up
ashamed, precisely, but weary of a life spent
and a lifetime of having her as companion.
committing deeds that would shame a better
“She put it, and I think honestly understood
man. The weight comes to be heavier, after a
it, as wanting to love me. She wasn’t lying
time, than even an old bastard like me can tol-
about that. She wanted to love me and she
erate. I want to be gone. But I have been un-
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