Maximum Light

by Nancy Kress

  “But the FBI did step in,” Van said. “Because we’re not willing to tolerate murder.”

  “You think you can draw a line,” Maggie said icily. “This much evil is okay, but no more. And you think you can force everyone else toe your line, right?”

  “Yes!” Van suddenly roared. “Because we have to! Damn it, Maggie, my job is to get things done! And if the government combined with public opinion make it so this is the only way I can get them done, then I’ll do and tolerate and enforce whatever the fuck I have to!”

  “And you want Nick to tolerate it, too. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Maggie stood and faced Van, five-three to his six-four. “You’re buying his silence. By saving his life. So that he’ll control Shana Walders and Cameron Atuli and keep them quiet in ways you can’t.” A new thought occurred to her; she suddenly whirled on me, and so help me God I could feel the brief masculine twinge of relief in Van Grant’s body.

  “And what have you learned, Nick?” Maggie cried. “That you haven’t told me, and apparently weren’t going to?”

  I looked at Vanderbilt Grant. It was hard to get the words out. I said, “That they’re dead, aren’t they? Maggie is wrong. Shana or Cameron, or both—they’re already dead. They mucked around with your protected illegal vivifacturers, and got too close, and you—”

  “No. They’re not dead,” Van said forcefully. “Maggie is right. Walders and Atuli are in protective custody. In isolation in a federal prison, but we can’t keep them there too much longer. Your stupid kids got in too deep, and we had to go in after them or … we had to go in after them. And we did. We’re not murderers, Nick, and it’s a damn good thing we had your vidphone tapped. Atuli got your message about McCullough and tried to keep your appointment himself.… He’s a brave kid. He—God, the stupid risks the young take!”

  After a moment, he heard what he’d just said. The stupid risks the young take—the same stupid, life-threatening risks that the illegal labs were taking. Except that Shana and Cameron had apparently risked themselves, and the criminal labs only risked the lives of others.

  But it was the lives of others—a whole country of others—that Van was fighting to give a chance at a reproductive future.

  “Nick?” Van said. He was watching me closely.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “About talking to Shana and Cameron. About securing their … silence. No promises, Van. But I’ll think about it.”

  “How will I know your decision?” he said, suddenly humble. “And when? I can’t hold them in prison much longer. There’ll be civil-liberties lawyers all over me like maggots on carrion.”

  I thought about it. “Three days. Thursday. I want to talk to Shana and Atuli first. The doctors say I can go home; can you arrange for us to have immediate transport, and to visit the two kids wherever you’ve stashed them?”

  Van nodded wordlessly and stood. He was still the master showman/politician—he knew the right moment to leave the stage. His footsteps echoed down the hospital corridor, and neither Maggie nor I spoke until the sound ended. Then she rose, walked to the window, and stared out. Even at that distance her green dress was bright to me, but her head and hands disappeared, ghost-like.

  Into the strained silence she said suddenly, “Van’s got some disease. His color is terrible. He’s going to die.”

  “We’re all going to die,” I said, and even as I said the mock-cynical words, their truth smacked into me all over again. I could make peace with death all I wanted, or I could rage against it all I wanted, and neither would change anything. I was going to die, anyway, sooner or later, with or without dignity, with or without battlefield truces, with or without having arranged everything exactly as I wanted it. Life was too big for that sort of stage management. It was, in fact, an unfathomable series of messy risks, even for the old.

  Especially for the old.

  “Let’s go home, Maggie. I’ve got some serious choices to make, and I’d rather make them at home.”

  She turned from the window and walked toward me. As her face rematerialized above the green dress, I saw that she was smiling. It wasn’t until then, until Maggie smiled at me in that particular way, that I realized that, even though I hadn’t chose to do so, I had fully rejoined the living for as long as I possibly could.

  20

  CAMERON ATULI

  The prison cell has a concrete floor. It’s actually a comfortable room, not at all what I thought a prison was like. Except for the locked metal door and lack of windows, it looks like a small hotel suite furnished without taste or imagination: beige rug and sofa, maple table and chairs with machine-lathe turnings, television, two beds in discreetly separate alcoves for Shana and me. The bathroom has a door. The silverware that comes with our meals includes bread knives.

  “I could make a weapon out of any of a dozen things in here,” Shana says with disgust. “There are coiled metal springs in that sofa, for God’s sake!”

  “And who would you use it on if you did?” I say acidly. She’s really getting on my nerves. “In eight days, we haven’t seen a single person.” Our food trays arrive three times a day through a narrow slot. Nothing Shana has done—keeping the trays, not keeping the trays, wrecking one of the chairs, locking herself in the bathroom, pretending illness—has produced signs of any human being.

  “God, Atuli, you’re such a wimp. No one has shown up yet. That doesn’t mean they won’t. And I’m going to be ready for them, even if you’d rather just whine about what’s under the rug.”

  “It’s concrete,” I say, but she only rolls her eyes. She’s not stupid, but she acts it. The floor is concrete. It has no give at all. I can’t dance on it without risking injury, and every day that goes by without dancing is a day for my muscles to stiffen and shorten.

  I do what I can. I turn the sofa around, so the back faces the room, and I hold onto it to do two barres each day. Pliés, battements, ronds de jambe, développés. But I can’t do any center work on this floor.

  “And what if I want to actually sit on the sofa?” Shana asks, watching me scornfully.

  “You can turn it back round when I’m done,” I say. Pliés, battements, ronds de jambe, développés.

  “I’m not a fucking furniture mover.”

  “Look, Shana,” I say, “I know you hate being ‘cooped up,’ as you call it. But don’t take it out on me. I’m busy.”

  “Yeah, right. Busy showing off your pretty moves while our own government keeps us prisoners!”

  Pliés, battements, ronds de jambe, développés.

  “When I get out of here,” she storms, “I’m going to sue their asses off. I’ll find me a tough lawyer who’ll take my case on contingency, and I’ll take on the entire rotten government! I’ll make such a stink they’ll regret they ever fucked with me!”

  “They probably already regret saving your life,” I said, turning to repeat my combinations with the other leg. “I know I do.”

  “Because all you care about is prancing around a stage in a fluffy tutu! Rucky-fucky dancer!”

  “Philistine!”

  “What does that mean?”

  I can’t help it; I laugh. It’s not a happy laugh. Shana Walders is the most abrasive person I’ve ever met. She’s forced me to look at things I didn’t want to ever see again, and she goes on forcing me now that we’re safe. Because we are safe. This isn’t some sadistic torture chamber where they cut up people or murder them or put their faces on chimpanzees.… But I won’t think about that now. I refuse to think about that now. This is the Cunningham Federal Detention Center in Washington, D.C., where Shana and I are being temporarily kept safe until Dr. Nicholas Clementi can come talk to us. That’s what we were told. We’re in here for our own safety, and I for one am not unhappy about this, or wouldn’t be if I knew that Rob wasn’t worried sick about me and if the floor weren’t concrete.

  Shana says, “Don’t laugh at me, Atuli.”

  “Then don’t say stupid things.” Pliés, battements, ron
ds de jambe, développés.

  “You just don’t react, do you? Whatever they do to you—cut off your balls, lock you up—you just take it.”

  She’s trying to bait me. I lower my leg slowly in a développé—five, six, seven, eight—before saying, “I told you, it’s not the same people who did both those things. Criminals tortured us. The government rescued us. Don’t you even care about the difference?”

  “The government screwed me!” she shouts. She’s losing control; she really can’t stand being confined. “Your precious government kept me out of the army in the first place because I just happened to see a bunch of monkeys with your face on them!”

  There it is again. She won’t let me forget. I turn to face in the other direction so I won’t have to see her, even though I haven’t worked the right leg enough. I raise the left. Pliés, battements, ronds de jambe, développés.

  Shana charges across our cell and shoves the sofa hard enough to tip it over. It crashes down; I jump back just in time. “You stupid bitch! If that thing hit my knee—”

  “Damn your knee! Atuli, don’t you even care? It’s not just all the little monkey Camerons! I told you what else I saw in that place. Some of those severed uteruses were made preggers with your sperm from your balls to grow your babies!”

  She shudders; what she saw in the lab has shaken her in ways I don’t claim to understand. Those aren’t my babies, even if they use my genes. Sperm donors do that all the time. But she’s said it again, the thing she just won’t let me forget: the animals with my face. Out there. Acting like animals, drawing their lips back to show the animal teeth, grunting like animals, fouling their clothes or the floor, picking fleas off themselves and eating them, smelly and lumbering and mindless … with my face.

  “Leave it alone, Shana! Just leave me alone!”

  “I only wish I could, you rucky-fucky shit!”

  I go in the bathroom and close the door, the only way I can get away from her. But even in the bathroom, I can’t get away from the memory of the toddler standing beside me, staring at me with my eyes, chittering and horrifying and climbing the curtains with long curved hairy feet.…

  I cover my face with my hands and lean against the bathroom wall.

  But after a few moments of that, I straighten. The sink is only hip height to me, but the towel rack is higher, and it seems to be firmly fastened to the wall. I hold onto it and plié. There’s not much room, I won’t be able to do any grand battements, but at least I can stretch. And if Shana starts yelling at me through the door, I can always turn on the sink and shower and let the water drown her out.

  * * *

  He comes into the room slowly, leaning on a cane, and I realize he’s at least partly blind. I didn’t know that. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen Dr. Nicholas Clementi.

  “Hey, Nick,” Shana says, and I glance at her in surprise. I didn’t know her voice could have that softness in it. “Sit down here.” On the sofa, which has been stood upright again, facing outward.

  “Shana. Mr. Atuli,” Dr. Clementi says, formally. He sinks into the sofa cushions and briefly closes his eyes. He’s very weak. Yet he’s here alone, the only person to come into our cell in a week and a half.

  Shana says, “You look like shit, Nick. Didn’t that French hospital help?”

  “That French hospital saved my life,” he says, and now he’s looking at her with amusement. He’s extremely old, but very well dressed, and he has a polished personal presentation. I can’t imagine how someone like him and someone like Shana could like each other, but it looks like they do.

  “Really?” she says. “You beat the sickness? Good for you. Now tell us what you’re going to do for us, and why the fuck we’re being kept here like some kind of criminals! I uncovered an illegal vivifacture lab, for Chrissake! Nobody don’t seem to realize that! What the fuck is going on here?”

  Again that look on Shana’s face, that shudder. Dr. Clementi sees it, sitting so close to her. He takes her hand.

  “Yes, you did uncover an illegal vivifacture lab. And a whole lot more. Shana, Mr. Atuli, I have a lot to tell you, and I can’t talk for very long without tiring. So please stay quiet and let me say what I must, without interruption.”

  He doesn’t move his weak old body on the sofa. But somehow it’s as if he’s gathering himself together for a major jump: a grand jeté, a cabriole derrière.

  “Shana, I can get you accepted into the regular army. Cameron, you can return to Aldani House and dance in peace, at least for a while. But there’s a price for both of those things, and this is it. Shana, you can’t sue anybody, or—”

  “How’d you know I been talking about suing?” Shana demands. “This jail is bugged? And you’re part of it?”

  “Yes to the first, no to the second. Be quiet and listen. You can’t sue, and you can’t sell your story to the press, and you can’t ever blackmail anyone about this, even if you get tossed out of the army for the sort of totally unrelated insubordination I know you’re capable of.

  “Mr. Atuli, you’ll have to live knowing that the vivifactured baby-substitutes with your face are out there. They won’t be hunted down and destroyed, and eventually some reporter somewhere will see one and recognize it and it’ll be all over the world media. After that happens, you’ll no longer be able to just dance. Every time you set foot on a stage your audience will see not just your dancing but your monstrous notoriety, and you won’t be able to tell them that it wasn’t voluntary.”

  I manage to get out, “And if I don’t agree to this … price?”

  “The alternative is that the whole story be told right now, and you won’t have even an uncertain interval of peaceful dancing before the media turn your every performance into a sideshow.” The old man looks straight at me from his blind eyes. “I’m sorry, Cameron. They’re not good choices.”

  “What is the whole story, Nick?” Shana demands. “And will they destroy … what I saw in the lab, with Cameron’s—”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But you and I will never know either way. God, I’m tired. I came straight from the airport.”

  Despite my numbness, I’m surprised that he’d ask for pity like that. He doesn’t seem the type. But then I see Shana squeeze his hand, her face softening again, and I realize why he did it.

  “The trouble is,” Dr. Clementi continues, “there are so few of you children now. You are a precious resource. When something is precious, everyone tries to protect it. Even from the truth. Nobody has told either of you the truth about what’s happened to you, not since the day Cameron was kidnapped for his pan-ethnic beauty. I’m going to tell you the truth now. Yes, Shana, this room is undoubtedly bugged. But I’m going to tell you the truth anyway, and then the three of us will decide what to do about it. If our own government lets us.”

  Dr. Clementi pauses, and looks around slowly at the walls. I hold my breath; I think Shana does, too. But no one comes in. No one stops him.

  And he tells us. He tells us what happened to me, and how, and why, and who let it happen. The same for Shana. I don’t want to hear it, I want to rehearse in my mind instead, something like the lovely pas de deux from Summer Storms: promenade in attitude, finish with the lift … but I can’t. I have to listen. Dr. Clementi tells us everything.

  When he finishes, his body sags back against the sofa. Shana says, “Son of a bitch,” and he smiles tiredly.

  “To whom in particular are you referring, Shana?”

  “All of them!”

  “Not necessarily. At any rate, what we have to decide is—”

  “I can see it for myself, Nick! Whether to go on pretending no kidnapping and castration and what-all don’t even happen, or to blow the whistle!”

  “And so end the research that might solve the endocrine-disrupter crisis,” Dr. Clementi adds. “Don’t forget that piece.”

  “Are you saying we should—”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Dr. Clementi says testily, and it’s the first time I’ve hea
rd him sound like an old man. “I’m asking you two, who are so intimately involved in all this, which choice you would make. Cameron?”

  Shana says hotly, “Cam wants—”

  “Let Cameron speak for himself.”

  “But he don’t—”

  “Shana. Let Cameron himself say what he wants.”

  “I just want to dance!”

  Both of them look at me, and I know what their looks mean. I can’t “just dance.” There is no longer any way just to dance, to forget, to escape what happened to me. The three of us have to choose the best thing to do, so we have to consider our memories, all of them. That’s the way it is. And not even dancing can make it any different for me, not ever again.

  21

  NICK CLEMENTI

  It is a terrible thing to betray people who have trusted you. It’s worse to do it in front of millions, on television.

  Lights shone on the stage from both ahead and above. They were hot; the row of eminent scientists sitting on the stage started to sweat, small clear individual drops of water making their way through thin gray hair, down suit collars, onto conservative light lipstick. The lights were also blinding. I wasn’t the only one on stage who wouldn’t be able to distinguish faces in the packed hotel ballroom. But unlike the others, I knew who was out there, and where some of them sat.

  Shana, in her new army dress uniform, would be in the second row. She would be sitting very straight, very solemn, very young. Sallie, reinstated at the CDC, sat with her husband and Maggie at the far left. Somewhere safely in the back were Cameron and Rob.

  I had insisted, in the strongest possible terms, that these three groups arrive, and sit, and leave separately.

  Out there, too, was the scientific press, buzzing with excitement. The popular press would look less eager. They were used to portentous announcements of “major scientific summit meetings.” As far as they knew, this was just one more. A few reporters, however, the sharpest ones, would have the alert look of tigers that scent wounded prey. Those were the ones sitting in the back; if this press conference was what they suspected, they’d want to be able to rush out to interview manufacturing executives, robocams in hand. Stories are better with vids of first blood.