Reintegration

by Eden S. French

  This was such an irritating discussion. It could be amusing to dance around the truth. “Maybe a redhead. With dimples.”

  “Aha! So you have been noticing men, you sly little thing. Perhaps there’s somebody matching that description in one of your classes?”

  “It’s a secret.” Mineko finished her lemon slice and wiped away the crumbs. “If you don’t mind, I should do some reading in the study.”

  “There’s no need to be shy. I know what it’s like to have a crush. Is he older than you?”

  “Gossiping is an ethical breach.” Mineko stood, and Kaori produced a childish pout. “You shouldn’t sulk. It’s bad for your health.”

  “Fine. Go study, you tease. But I’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ve been waiting too long to have this talk with you.”

  Mineko snatched another cookie on her way out. She returned to the lobby, contemplated for a moment her parent’s bad taste in portraiture, and ascended the stairs.

  Gaspar’s study was unlocked and unattended. Though it was his private place of work in theory, the leather armchair in the corner was meant for Mineko. Her father liked being kept company while he worked, and she had spent many evenings curled in the chair, dividing her attention between him and whatever book she was reading.

  She sidled around the desk to take a peek at his computer. For once, the screen had been locked, and she didn’t know the code. No spying today, then. Instead, she unlatched the windows and inhaled the cool air.

  In the rear garden below, topiaries jostled for space with statuary—animals, people, ugly abstract shapes—and flower beds formed colorful lines around trimmed hedges. Codists loved to plant trees and dig ornamental lakes. A tremendous waste of water.

  Still facing the sun, Mineko closed her eyes and visualized Kade. He’d been handsome, articulate, impressive. What would it be like to kiss him? To feel his stubble against her cheek? It wasn’t an unpleasant idea, but it didn’t enthrall her like the thought of Lexi or Callie.

  But why was that? Because they were women? Or was it just a difference of personality?

  Mineko forced herself to stare at a hedge shaped like a horse. If she thought hard enough about horses, she’d stop thinking about Callie’s tanned legs, or Lexi’s fine-cheeked face, or how soft Valerie’s lips had been. Horses, horses. Were there any still alive in the world? Did people still ride them? Could a horse win a fight with a dog?

  Before she could consider the topic further, crunching noises suggested someone walking on the garden path below. Mineko ducked out of sight.

  “I didn’t think you’d be home this soon.” It was Kaori, her voice coming from the direction of the hedges.

  “Neither did I.” Gaspar, sounding tired. “But Lachlan’s made an unholy mess. He launched an operation without telling me, even requisitioned a helicopter. Now I have two cars, two bikes, and nine people missing. Lachlan logged it as a success, with a single comment: ‘A promising start.’”

  “Cheeky as ever.”

  “Given what was at stake, I thought he’d at least try to behave.” Gaspar sighed. Mineko had seen him stressed enough times to imagine how he might look: hunched, frowning, his long fingers massaging his temples. “I have no doubt he’ll get this woman in the end, but I have to explain his present stunt to the Committee.”

  “You could cover it up.”

  “I could, and then they’d have something to hang me with later.”

  “What if I initiate a coup? We’ll parade the Committee through the districts in their underwear.”

  “Don’t even joke about it. I’ll have to reign Lachlan in, get him to come up with a better explanation for himself. He’s earned plenty of leeway, but our personnel aren’t expendable. This isn’t the military.”

  “That’s a low blow.” Kaori’s tone lightened. “Min’s around, by the way. She didn’t want to study at school.”

  “I’ll have to say hello before I head out again. There’re two more meetings this afternoon. District Affairs is hassling me. They think they should be the ones running the hunt for Vale.”

  “District Affairs couldn’t run a bake sale.”

  “Whereas Lachlan would sell every cake and then burn the stall down.” They both laughed, and the sound of footsteps resumed. “Maybe it’s those implants of his. Who knows what the long term side effects are?”

  “That reminds me. If we don’t start implanting the troops, we’re in for trouble. The Port Venn junta have entire squads of cyborgs these days. I wish you’d ride the Committee harder on it.”

  “In time, my love, in time…” Their voices faded.

  Mineko retreated to her chair and sat hugging her knees. Was this good news? It sounded as if Lachlan had suffered a disastrous defeat. But that didn’t mean one of her friends hadn’t been injured. Or worse.

  A chill spread through her. If only she could know for sure. Before she’d met these people, she’d had no role models. Now she could aspire to be as brave as Callie, as insightful as Kade, as audacious as Lexi…whereas before, she’d simply wished she were less like Mineko.

  If only she’d accepted Callie’s offer.

  Minutes passed uncounted in a cloud of numb regret. The door opened and Gaspar entered the room. “Min! You’re all huddled up.”

  Mineko peered at him over her knees. “I’m just stressed about the exam.”

  “In a few months, you’ll have forgotten about it.” Gaspar frowned. “It’s not the exam that’s troubling you, is it? You seem very shaken up. Are you sure you’re fine?”

  “No.” Mineko blurted the word, and by the time it had escaped, it was too late to keep back tears. “I’m scared.”

  Gaspar hurried to put a lanky arm around her. Mineko sobbed against his side, not crying for any one thing in particular but simply losing the strength to fight against what felt like the entire world.

  “My poor little Min.” Gaspar spoke too gently for a man responsible for so many terrible things. How ironic that he should be both the cause of her tears and the only comfort she could find. “Is your mother pestering you about marriage again?”

  “Why do we live like this, Dad? Why is everything so unkind?”

  Gaspar stroked her hair. “We’re trying to make it better. Me and your mother, everyone around us. We’re working hard.”

  “Would you ever hate me?” Mineko clutched his sleeve. “If they told you to hate me, would you?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t hate you. Why would you say that? Are you afraid you’ve done something wrong?”

  “Yes. I was born a Codist.”

  Gaspar stopped stroking, and Mineko held her breath. She hadn’t meant to say anything so extreme, but she’d become careless lately, distracted by impossible longings. And now she’d said the unforgivable.

  “I thought this day would come. The clever ones always have doubts.” Gaspar cupped her head in his hands and looked into her eyes. “You’re ashamed because we have so much while they have so little.”

  Mineko nodded, and Gaspar patted her cheek. “I know you’ll resist me saying so, but this is just a phase. As a Tamura, there are so many expectations put upon you. It’s overwhelming, but you’re strong. You just need to see it through. Then you’ll view Codism as the glorious truth it is.”

  “Just a phase.” Mineko was still numbed, and now she was empty too. After a lifetime of fear, she’d spoken her mind, yet instead of an explosion of anger she’d received only a patronizing dismissal. “Thank you. I’ll try to keep my composure from now on.”

  “I did a bad job comforting you, didn’t I? I’m sorry. You should talk to your mother. She wishes you and she would bond more.”

  It seemed Mineko had gone in an instant from being consoled to being lectured. “I’m sure that’s a phase too.”

  “Is there anything I can get for you? Perhaps a new study tablet? I’ve noticed you’re still hauling around that old model… No, that’s not it. You want to become your own woman. You’re resentful that there’s so much
attached to your family name. I can understand that.”

  “I know what my family name means. I just hope that wherever my future takes me, I’ll make you proud.”

  Affection softened Gaspar’s worried features. “I’m sure you will.”

  * * *

  After an hour of reading, Mineko grew incapable of pretending to care about Social Ethics. She left the study and trekked through the house, descending the stairs in a pensive daydream, until she emerged into one of the side gardens.

  The garden held her favorite statue, a sculpture of a warrior woman with a spear in one hand and an ornate shield in the other. Her helmet was Greek, Kaori claimed. Mineko loved the way the statue’s hair had been carved around her shoulders in thick curls, somehow seeming wild and living despite being made of stone.

  Mineko sat at the base of the statue with her tablet in hand. For a few idle minutes she played a game, tapping colored circles to form lines between them. A brown bird landed and stared at her, its little head tilted. She stared back. The bird gave the ground a rapid peck, glared at her and fluttered away.

  “Mineko.” At the sound of Lachlan’s voice, Mineko’s heart dove into her stomach and remained there, cowering. He advanced across the grass, a grim expression on his face. “Is your father around?”

  “He left. He had a meeting.”

  “Fortunate for me.” Lachlan scrutinized her. “You look very pale. Is something the matter?”

  Mineko returned to her feet and gripped the warrior woman’s leg for support. “I heard you had an incident.”

  “Word travels quickly.” Lachlan slumped on a wrought-iron bench. He seemed tired, and his voice lacked its usual ironic quality. “That Vale woman is quite a character.”

  “You found her?”

  “Oh yes. She wiped one of my agents. How does somebody with such inhuman power keep herself in check? Why isn’t she living as a goddess, ruling over all Foundation?” Lachlan steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “The woman clearly has no ambition.”

  Mineko’s insides clenched into a queasy ball. “She wiped someone?”

  “That troubles you, doesn’t it? And people were shot dead, among them my helicopter pilot. Some of these revolutionaries are quite savage.”

  Wiped. Of course Lexi needed to defend herself, but a mind was such a precious thing, and to simply melt one away… “Did they escape?”

  “I’m quite empty-handed.” Lachlan smiled over his fingertips. “I’m sure you’re relieved.”

  “Relieved? Why would I be relieved?”

  “Because you want Project Sky to fail. You’re afraid that Code Intel will use it to peer into the heads of the unrighteous, those like you and me. To convert the districts as though we were missionaries and Codism were our religion. And you’re right. That is indeed their sick fucking end-game.”

  Not this again—not another test of her loyalty, another attempt to provoke her into saying something compromising. “Why are you saying these things?”

  “I have no idea what to do about you.” There was no trace of mockery in Lachlan’s voice, not a hint of condescension. “If you flee, you’ll be added to our list of traitors. Tamura or not, that guarantees you’ll be Reintegrated when—and not if—you’re caught. Yet you can’t continue like this, can you? You’ll break. You’ve seen too much. Experienced too much. Something like a kiss, for example, from little Dr. Wren.”

  Instead of fear, it was anger that surged to take hold of Mineko, the kind of indignant outrage she had often imagined would exist in the stone heart of the warrior woman. “Don’t you hurt her.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her. It’ll come as a surprise to you, but your father is much more dangerous to her, and to you, than I ever have been.”

  “Dad wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “He would.” Lachlan spoke with quiet conviction. “A decade ago, he gave me a special assignment, one that affirmed me as his greatest pupil. I was told to infiltrate the Revolutionary People’s Gazette. I spent three years in that group, and when I came back, I was changed. Of course, even a few days would have been enough to change me. As it was for you.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “My chief interest has always been preserving myself. But when one lives by choice amid ugliness, they’re all the more liable to be stirred by a glimpse of beauty. You think I’m a terrible, unfeeling ogre. Life would be simpler for both of us if that were true.”

  “This is just part of your game. You’re trying to coax a reaction from me or make me say something unwise. I won’t.”

  Lachlan smiled with a hint of his old wryness. “I can’t deny I’ve enjoyed myself. Setting you up with Valerie Wren, for example, just to confirm a little suspicion of mine.”

  His smile vanished. “Let me be clear, however. Yes, this is part of my game, but you’re not one of my pawns. You’re my queen, and I haven’t the courage to sacrifice you. At least, not yet.”

  He rose and departed through the garden. Mineko remained flattened against the statue, her thoughts scattered. Nothing made sense. The Code, Lachlan, her parents, none of it. But one thing was certain—her secrets were no longer hidden, and Reintegration seemed more likely than ever. And then there would be nothing of her left. Just a body with her face. A stranger with her name.

  CHAPTER 22

  It had been more than a century since the last train had sped over the Rail District’s corroded network of steel bars and spikes. Presumably, it had been headed in the only sensible direction: the fuck out of there.

  Now, long after the final whistle had blown, the overland rail was nothing more than a map of scars connecting one abandoned district to another. Most of the tracks had been picked apart for scrap, leaving long troughs of earth crowded with weeds, rocks, and broken glass. The trenches of Lexi’s childhood.

  She rested her head against the van’s window and watched the familiar scenery roll by. No doubt Kade was watching too, noticing places they both remembered—apartment towers with barred doors; stores where customers were served at gunpoint; diners with ancient plastic counters the color of pus; wide streets on which people gathered to sell trinkets, drugs, and human bodies, and narrow ones on which they lost their blood and lives.

  Soil and cement fighting for superiority, weeds crawling up streetlights, windows without panes, houses without roofs, kids without hope in pairs or ragged packs—it was all here, the same as always, beneath a sky lit by the crimson hue of late afternoon.

  “Bring back any memories for you guys?” Zeke was kneeling in the back of the van, peeling the bandage from Riva’s hand. “I ain’t never come here, personally.”

  “Yes.” Kade slouched against the van’s closed rear doors, his head down and his arms folded. “A few.”

  “It doesn’t seem so bad.” Riva stood swaying beside Amity, who was buckled into the van’s lone rear seat. “The streets look pretty clean, and a lot of the buildings seem occupied.”

  “Well, it’s not the worst district,” said Lexi. “But this is Foundation. Being the worst district in Foundation is a little like being the worst strain of flesh-eating virus. Even being the best isn’t something to brag about.”

  The van turned a corner. Far in the distance, tiny plumes of smoke marked the industrial district. It was possible to reach it by following the tracks on foot, but only at the risk of being devoured by the insects that floated in trembling bunches across the intervening wasteland.

  “What is the nicest district, anyhow?” said Zeke. “Say I’m gonna move somewhere, start a family. Or steal one and raise it as my own, anyway.”

  “The University and the East Side,” said Kade. “There are key enclaves in both, so the Codists protect them, and the local gangs are easygoing types. The Menagerie, Contessa, and so on. The Rail District falls under Vassago’s thumb, and he doesn’t have any serious rivals, so it’s fairly safe on the streets. The worst areas are those where equally-matched gangs refuse to concede territory and everyone is caugh
t in internecine conflict.”

  Zeke whistled. “Fun facts. What about the other way around? Callie, you tell us. What’s the nastiest piece of corn in this big old shit heap?”

  “Longway Falls,” Callie said without hesitation. “It’s way out. The same distance Rusalka’s territory is from here, but south instead of east. There’s maybe two thousand folks living in what used to be a rich suburb. It’s next to an old golf course, which is just a forest with sand traps these days. A pack of skinheads runs the place. They’re led by a piece of work who calls himself the King of Irons.”

  “King of Irons? He likes his shirts to be nice and crisp, is that his deal?”

  “Nothing so cute. His gang kills anyone they think isn’t ‘pure,’ which to them means white and straight. They’ve made the place into a nasty little enclave of their own.”

  “So they’re scared of melanin and queer people? Riva, you’d be screwed twice over.” Zeke gave a nervous grin. “We oughta set Amity loose on ’em. Go in guns blazing, wipe out the shitheads. I’d take the rear, obviously.”

  Riva raised an eyebrow. “But Zeke, taking the rear is what made you a target in the first place.”

  Zeke sniggered. “Damn, girl.” He poked Amity in the arm. “You feeling any better yet, honey?”

  No response. Though Amity had stirred a few times since the fight with Lachlan, she hadn’t spoken save for a few irritated, incoherent mutterings. Her eyes remained glazed, her breath shallow.

  “It’s hard seeing her like this,” said Riva. “How long until we get to these friends of yours?”

  “Almost there,” said Lexi. “Callie, see that big billboard ahead?”

  Callie nodded. “Hard not to.”

  It had once been an advertisement for some kind of masculine product, maybe a watch, a suit or a cologne—hard to say for sure, as it had been tagged over completely, with only the face of the groomed, smarmy male model spared from the tide of graffiti. Somebody had painted an erect cock entering his mouth, and the other graffiti artists had clearly found that too hilarious to cover up.