Maximum Light

by Nancy Kress

  “You have a beautiful porte de bras in your arabesques,” I say. “Much more expressive than mine. I was watching you in the mirror.”

  “But you can jump,” Rob says. It’s true. I have the strongest and most precise jumps in the company.

  We stroll through the wood until we come to a clearing beside the wall. Against the foamcast, which is made to look like rough stone, stands an unpainted wooden bench. Without talking about it, Rob and I sit.

  I reach down and pluck a wild strawberry. It tastes warm from the sun, sweet and juicy. Rob looks at me oddly.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing.” He gazes away. But I guess what his look means: You didn’t use to like strawberries. I’m getting used to this look. Apparently many of my tastes were different before the operation. Then, people tell me, I never wore purple; now I love it. Then I listened every day to Ragliev; now I refer the classical composers, especially Schubert. Then I wore rings and bracelets and vest pins; now a pile of jewelry sits gathering dust on my messy dresser top.

  The silence stretches out. To break it, Rob says, “Look at that poor bird.” It’s a sparrow, hopping on the ground on its one foot. There’s also something wrong with the shape of its wings. I remember that there are a lot of deformed birds.

  The bird flies awkwardly away. I eat another strawberry. More silence. Rob and I don’t look at each other. When I can’t stand it anymore, I put one hand on the rough wall. “What’s on the other side?”

  He turns to blink at me. “You don’t remember the city?”

  I shake my head, smiling at him. His eyes are so blue.

  “Not anything about this particular neighborhood?”

  “No,” I say, and for the first time, I realize that of course Rob knows what happened to me to send me to the memory doctors. Everyone in Aldani House must know; only something terrible enough to be general knowledge would justify the operation. Why haven’t I realized this before? I draw away from Rob, confused and suddenly ashamed. These people don’t just remember me with different tastes; they possess crucial pieces of my life that I don’t have.

  Rob blurts, “Don’t push me away, Cam! Not again! When you smiled at me in class this morning, I thought, I hoped … don’t push me away again!”

  Again. The word makes me uneasy; he knows so much about me. Rob sees my reaction and puts his hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to do that. Don’t worry, none of us will ever talk to you about what happened to you … before. Nobody, ever. Mr. C. and Melita were both very clear about that. And we love you, Cam, you must feel that. I … love you.”

  I say, despite my uneasiness, “Were we lovers? Before?”

  He doesn’t answer. I think again about the one part of me that feels somehow different since I’ve returned … although I don’t even know what I mean by “different.” Just different in my hand when I shower, or masturbate. But everything still functions just fine, so what difference could any difference really make?

  I repeat, “Were we lovers? Before?”

  “Yes,” Rob whispers. And then, “But this is now. I know that. Melita warned me that … This is now, and you’re starting over. I’m just … glad you’re here with me now, like this.” He makes a tremendous effort; I can see him doing it. Gathering himself together, as if for a flick jeté. He says lightly, “What’s on the other side of the wall is a city street, with some expensive houses and very nice shops. We can go there tomorrow, if you like.”

  I say, before I know I’m going to, “I’m not going to leave Aldani House.”

  His eyes widen. “Not ever?”

  “No.” I feel safe here.

  “But … but you have to dance outside, you know. You’re a principal dancer. The company leaves on tour next month!”

  On tour. I taste the idea. On tour would mean moving from place to place with most of the company, or at least a good chunk of it. Sarah and Dmitri and Caroline and Joaquim. Plus Yong to protect us and Melita to organize everything and Rebecca to conduct class, just as if we were all still home.… Dancing every night in front of strangers, but on a stage, separated from the audience out there unseen in the dark. Yes, I can do that. I nod. “Of course. I’m dancing Prodigal Son.”

  Rob relaxes. “Well, good. And you don’t have to go to any shops outside if you don’t want to. Although there is a bracelet in Jewel of the Ages there that would look so good against your skin … yum.”

  Shyly he holds his arm parallel to mine. His skin is pale, milky beside my richer light brown. And it’s back, the smiling and gaze averting and eye widening. The electricity. I don’t mention that I no longer wear bracelets. However, Rob won’t initiate anything, because I don’t remember the past and he’s a sweet and considerate man. All at once a surge of happiness floods through me, pure pleasure that feels familiar even though I don’t remember it. I laugh, and lean over, and kiss Rob on each blue, blue eye.

  His arms slide around me. We kiss there on the bench, beside the rough wall and under the budding trees, and I think how lucky I am to have had a memory operation and so have the chance to discover him for the first time all over again.

  4

  SHANA WALDERS

  The committee that advises Congress don’t meet in the Capitol building, like I thought. Instead the federal marshall escorts me to an office building that looks like every other office building in downtown D.C. Foamcast-and-glass. A few sickly trees out front, looking like too many homeless peed on them. The usual signs about social responsibility, except these are carved into the building instead of being holos. Lots of railings, non-skid floors, medical field-monitors—more safety than class.

  The committee room don’t have much class neither. Wood tables and chairs, cloth curtains at the windows, china coffee cups, a dinky three-foot fiat screen—you’d think important people like that would do better for themselves. None of the stuff you see on vid: flashy wall programming or window opaquers or holoscreens or those cups that dissolve themselves when the drink’s gone. Maybe this isn’t such an important committee after all, and maybe my report isn’t so important neither. But then why did they bring me in person, instead of just vidding what I have to say? And the very next day after the train car exploded? And escorted by a federal marshall?

  I’m important. Bet your betty bytes on it.

  “Private Walders?” the committee leader says. “Thank you for coming. Sit there, please.”

  I sit, straight and tall. He’s a moldy oldie, of course, but sharp-eyed. He don’t smile. More people drift into the room, get coffee, make small talk. Seven men, five women. I’m the only one under fifty except for a cowed-looking man in the corner. The women wear suits with the pants cut full, business style, and their vests are brighter than the men’s. I’m in National Service full dress uniform. Introductions get made: Congresswoman This, Doctor That. Centers for Disease Control. Federal Drug Administration. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association. National Sperm Bank Task Force. Child Protection Agency. More, but I stop trying to remember them.

  On.

  “Private Walders, please tell this committee your birth date.”

  Not what I expect. What the fuck does it matter when I was born? I’m here to say what I saw. But I answer crisply, like a soldier. “November fourteenth, 2015, sir.”

  “And you are nineteen?”

  “Yes, sir.” He can do math. Congrats.

  “How long have you been in the National Service Corps?”

  “Ten months and thirteen days, sir.”

  “In what division?”

  “Army Adjunct, sir.” He can tell that from my uniform. Like I’d choose Environment Reclamation, or Project Patriot, or any of those stewdee divisions. Since I owe my country a year of responsibility, why wouldn’t I want it to include some action?

  “And you did your orientation where?”

  “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sir.”

  Now a woman takes over; I forget what agency she’s from. She studies a data re
adout on her wrister. “Private Walders, could you describe your official record in National Service thus far?”

  Uh-oh.

  I say, “My official record contains one commendation and seven reprimands, ma’am.”

  Her eyebrows go up. Bitch. “Seven reprimands? In ten months? For what?”

  “The commendation was for excellence in physical training,” I say, even though she didn’t ask. “The reprimands were for various offenses against Service standards.”

  “Detail them, please, Private Walders.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I hold onto my temper. I’m going to play this by the book, no matter what. “Three for violating curfew, two for lying to a superior, one for starting a fist fight during official training exercises, and one for inappropriate conduct while in uniform.”

  “Lying, twice?” Her eyebrows go even higher. If she knew how stupid she looked, she wouldn’t do that. “What did you lie about? Detail each occasion, please.”

  “The first time, about the curfew violation. The second time, about having returned my weapon to Stores.”

  The committee chairman takes back over. “If I may, Dr. Janson. Private Walders, I understand that you hope to eventually join the regular army.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I served in the army, well before you were two cells in your mama’s womb.” He smiles; I don’t. My heart is beating too fast. It’s not that easy no more to get into the regular army. With modern weapons, they don’t need too many soldiers. They’re picky. If these fuckers wreck my chances …

  “Your seven violations, innocent-sounding enough in the terminology of National Service Corps, carry other language in the regular army. You were AWOL. You perjured yourself during an official reprimand. You struck a superior officer. You were guilty of conduct unbecoming. And you stole a Class III government-issue weapon.”

  “I didn’t steal it, I just didn’t turn it back in at exercise debriefing! And it was only a stun gun!”

  He rolls on like I didn’t say nothing. “Now, in the army, any of those actions would earn you a discharge. Are you aware of that, Private Walders?”

  If I say yes, he’ll take me apart as an untrustworthy fuck. If I say no, he can easily show that I’m lying—the base library in Pittsburgh has records of my studying every deebee I could access about the regular army, including the discharge regulations. I don’t say nothing, sitting as tall as I can, looking straight ahead. The silence goes on, and on, and the son-of-a-bitch lets it. Now all the old mossteeth are studying their wristers—with my record on it. I feel like I can’t breathe right. Just when I think I can’t stand this one more second, the door opens.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Private Walders? So sorry to distract from your testimony. There was a car accident. No, no, it’s nothing, just superficial.”

  He’s the oldest person here, and his left hand has one of those little casts foamed around two fingers. I could of kissed the cast. Everybody forgets me and puts their attention on his accident. Murmurs, questions, so-sorry’s. Finally, real sour, the chairman gets everybody back to business and introduces my rescuer to me. These people would be polite at a cat-burning.

  “Private Walders, this is Dr. Nicholas Clementi, Nielson Institute Director Emeritus, and advisor on vivifacture to this committee. Dr. Clementi, we have just been establishing Private Walders’s … credibility.”

  And my Service record flashes up on the wall screen.

  Dr. Clementi glances at it, then at my face. The shit-eating chairman is about to start in on me again, but Clementi cuts him off. “I see. But I’m afraid my time here is limited this morning, Mr. Chairman—my doctor’s orders”—he touches his cast with his right hand and makes a little face—“so with your permission, I’d like to move right to the part of Private Walders’s testimony that I’m qualified to remark on.”

  I will kiss him, I swear it. Chairman Fucker scowls but don’t argue. This Dr. Clementi must be really important. I try to look like a credit to my country.

  “Private Walders, I’m a little confused about what happened during the train wreck in Lanham. Wasn’t the regular army directing the evacuation? Can you tell me how your National Service cadre happened to get involved?”

  He’s giving me a chance to tell it my way. I do, helped by a few questions from him. I explain about the pet rescue, and how there’d been nobody hurt for two solid days, and I throw in a little grease about how a few of us outstanding NSs were being given the chance to use our physical training in a way that provided genuine assistance to the army, blah blah. He keeps his eyes on me the whole time. For a rusty fusty, he’s all right.

  “So you then ran around to the back of the building to try to find a way to follow your assigned civilian inside? That was brave.”

  Now he’s greasing me, but that’s okay. “Yes, sir. And every door I had time to try was also locked tighter than … was locked tight. Then I see the civvy run out of another, little door alongside of the building. He don’t expect to see me, I don’t think, because he runs almost into me before he looks real startled and swerves away.”

  Chairman Fucker says, “Presumably providing you with a perfect chance to intercept him, since you’ve said you were so set on doing that. Did you draw your stun gun, Private Walders?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?” It’s like a left cross.

  “I was caught by surprise, sir. I didn’t expect to see him, and I—”

  “Somehow that seems at odds with your supposed excellence in physical training.”

  “—and I was just completely shocked by what he was carrying.”

  “Allegedly carrying,” some woman says, but at the same minute Dr. Clementi says, “And what was he carrying?” Which lets me ignore the bitch. Allegedly, my ass.

  “He was carrying a cage, sir. One of those super-light plastic cages with e-locks, with the bars so thin they’re barely there.” Meaning, I got a good view.

  “And what was in the cage, Private Walders?”

  I take a deep breath. This is it. Everybody here already knows what I’m going to say—I figured out that much, at least, by how they’re trying to make me look like a liar—but it’s my big moment anyway. I planned on playing it out for all it’s worth, but now that the time is finally here, something else happens. I’m just swamped by the memory itself. Those hands … those feet … a shudder runs through me, and I hear my own voice, not dramatic at all, even a little weak and sick:

  “In the cage was three monkeys, sir. With … with human faces and hands.”

  “I see,” Dr. Clementi says, like he might actually believe me. “Did they look like this? It’s a computer drawing based on your report to the NS. Please tell us how accurate it is, to the best of your recollection.”

  A picture flashes on the screen. And it’s dead accurate.

  Three chimps, crowded into the cage. Hairy monkey bodies, long dangling arms, those long feet that can curl around the bottom bars of the cage. Hands clutching the side bars, faces peering out. But the faces are all the same face, and it’s human. A child, with smooth light-brown skin and big hazel eyes flecked with gold. Lips molded firm and sweet—in fifteen years he’ll be prime stud-meat. Right now he’s the most adorable toddler I ever seen—except he’s a monkey. Or she is. One of three toddlers is a girl. Only they’re not toddlers—they’re monkeys. “With the same human face and chubby pink-nailed hands, but different hair. One has shiny straight black hair, one has blond curls, one has red fuzz. I see that on the drawing the redhead has a light dusting of freckles. Yeah, that’s right—I told that to my sergeant, and again to the captain who vidded my statement.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, and I hate that my voice wobbles a little. “That’s what I saw.”

  “Except that it’s impossible,” the bitchy woman said. “Dr. Clementi, setting aside the fact that any tinkering with germ-line human genetics is completely forbidden since the Tipping Point legislation—aside
from that, and in your professional opinion, does any scientific community anywhere in the world possess the expertise to create this sort of human-chimpanzee genetic hybrid?”

  “No,” Clementi says.

  “To come even close to creating such a hybrid?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re absolutely positive about this?”

  “Completely. Even countries in which genetic engineering is allowed are decades from creating anything like that. The problems seem insuperable.” Like cloned human eggs, cross-species engineered DNA divides to thirty eggs and then fails to differentiate.

  The congresswoman smirks. “Then you’re saying that Private Walders couldn’t possibly have seen what she claims she saw.”

  “No,” Clementi says. “I didn’t say that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Dr. Clementi is prepared to explain,” the chairman said, “but not just yet. There are matters of security involved.” And he glances toward me like I’m some kind of security risk.

  I can’t help it; the blood rushes to my face. Fuck them, fuck them all.

  Clementi steps in again. “Before we get to my testimony, I’d like to ask Private Walders a few more questions. You’ve been very helpful, Private Walders, and your reporting your experience to your sergeant was a patriotic act. Tell me, did you realize that what you saw must be radically against the law?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “You knew that the stiffest possible mandatory penalties attach to even trying to create any kind of animal-human crossbreed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Although didn’t he just say that wasn’t possible anyhow? I’m getting confused.

  “And you knew from your previous experiences that any more lying to your superiors would probably end your chances of being accepted in the regular army, after your Army Adjunct Division National Service was over?”