by Sarah Lahey
The assistant reloads the gun and points it at Quinn. She takes a breath, and then her left hand inflicts a short, sharp chop to his wrist. He drops the gun; she catches it and fires the bullet into the wall. A swarm of soldiers step from behind the columns with their weapons raised and every weapon is pointed at her.
She hands the gun to Dirac, but he doesn’t take it, so she leaves it on table. “Chance also prevails in science. Sometimes you never know what’s going to happen. That’s two nil. To me.”
“Good, very good,” Agent interrupts. “Entertaining and insightful. The game is a draw.”
Dirac doesn’t take his eyes off Quinn. “It’s not over yet. We’re just getting started.”
“You have proven your point,” says Agent. “The game is a draw. Quinn Buyers will sit down.”
Slowly, Niels begins to clap. Others quickly follow, and a rowdy applause erupts. Niels pulls Quinn’s chair back from the table, and she doesn’t hesitate and strides back to her seat. She knows that Agent, with a little help from Niels, just saved her.
Dirac nods. “A draw, then. I look forward to playing again.” After a few nervous coughs and furtive glances, the group relaxes and the hum of conversation continues.
Quinn focuses on Niels. “Thank you so much for inviting me, it’s been . . . memorable, it really has, but now I’d like to go home. You wanna get me out of here?”
It’s a directive, not a request. Pointing to the door, he glides back his chair.
They traverse the long Hall in silence, the gabble behind them softening and mingling with the scuff of their footsteps as they go, and with each stride a scolding rebuke rises within her.
When they’re finally outside, she turns on him. “What the fuck are you doing? Tell me, honestly. You don’t believe climate change is god’s wrath and the world is flat and there were no dinosaurs, because denial isn’t going to help us and it isn’t going to save us. Science is the only thing we have. It’s the only truth. This is all just fucking propaganda and lies. And you’re not helping. Those people in there—none of them have the Coin or the power you have. Do something. And for fuck’s sake, eat something.”
“Head’s up,” he murmurs, “because I owe you, and I don’t do debts. They want the diamond.” He signals for a military auto to get her home.
The vehicle pulls up immediately. Niels stands to one side and opens the door for her.
Quinn turns and walks in the opposite direction—toward the parklands beyond the palace. She unclips her wings, tucks them under her arm, and continues on, through the dimly lit gardens, between rows of sculpted tigers, and hedges of citrus, and pathways bordered by mounds of herbs, and over a small bridge. She keeps going until nothing is familiar, but she doesn’t want to stop or turn back; from this point on, the way forward is the future, and it’s unknown.
Ahead, she sees a narrow archway of trailing leaves and vines, delicately lit with fairy lights. She enters the green colonnade and inside she finds a new world—an animated, luminous tussle of lights and vines, a blur of technology and nature—and it’s beautiful. On the other side lies a small meadow scattered with thousands of multicolored liquid lights resting on slender stalks—red, orange, pink, and blue. Like luminous flower buds, they fill the field. That is where she needs to be, in the middle of all the color and energy.
Carefully moving the stalks to one side, she creates a path for herself, creeps into the center of the light field, and lies down on the cool grass. Above, the orbs reflect off each other and a thousand colored shapes swarm like stardust, mingling together in the night sky. New ideas waft amongst the luminous, color-filled air; the world around her is an illusion, a fabrication of the brain. There is nothing over there, no trees, no archway of vines, and no light. Reality is an algorithm and the human species has evolved to understand it through their senses. Dangerous thoughts. What did Lise say? “Our reality is not bound by classical concepts of physics. There’s no past or future, because they don’t exist, just as the concept of ‘now’ doesn’t exist. Just live. Life is for living.”
What did Tig tell her? “Leaders, including religious leaders, must explain new scientific truths; they must work new theories into world theories and religious theories. But how do to you explain a multiverse in religious terms? Or time travel?”
Not everyone likes these ideas. They undermine the control of governments and the power of religion. They change the way we understand the universe, the way we see ourselves and what is real and what is not.
Static electricity buzzes, and the hairs on her forearms prickle.
Forty-One
(He) 2s2 2p1
JIN AND GELLER EMERGE mid-morning still intoxicated with one another. Their routine resembles the previous day’s; yawning, wearing one another’s clothes, kissing, fondling in the food prep, and feeding each other slivers of fruit. Again, Quinn is instantly nauseous. The cause: a toss-up between the baby and the romantic antics of the lovesick couple.
“Sex fixes everything,” Jin whispers as she passes.
Not everything. Jin is beginning to smell, just a little, like rotting fruit. Embarking on a sexual relationship when you are terminally ill is a fraught affair, and it is taking its toll.
Geller opens her module and shows Quinn an article from the Fourth Estate: a picture of an angel wearing wings, standing next to Niels.
“You make a gran’ couple. Says ’ere you’re ’is date. Quite a coup, gettin’ te daughter av such a famous scientist into their mystic circle— an’ dressed like an ’eavenly bein’, at tat.”
Quinn has no time for quips or justification; she has an agenda. She collects Jin’s climate suit and helps her into it like she’s a child. Jin has lost so much weight she looks like a child—a child wearing her mother’s clothes.
“Why am I wearing this?” she complains. “I’m not up to going out. I’m tired.”
“Sleep when you’re de . . . sorry. We’re going out. The AVs are running again—you’ll be fine.” Quinn takes her hand and leads her to the skylift. Geller follows. They take an AV to the edge of the old city—away from the Pod, away from OneHub, away from any surveillance. The city walls are three meters thick, with arched colonnades that offer shade from the mid-morning sun. Inside it’s crowded, but they find a seat and huddle together.
Quinn sighs. “I’m pregnant.”
“We figured,” says Jin. “Morning sickness, tiredness, you haven’t stopped eating, your skin looks fabulous, and, final giveaway, no wine. We were only fucking half the time, the other half we were gossiping about you and the cute island guy. Conscientious Prevention?”
Quinn shrugs, she can’t explain it. “He’s a cyborg, and he’s kind of a king, with a small ‘k.’ He wants me to be his . . . beloved.”
Stunned silence.
“Sorry. The father of your children is a king,” Jin clarifies. “You had sex with a cyborg king, and now you’re having his baby?”
“Yes. I knew he was cyborg, but I wouldn’t have picked him for a king.” Okay, that’s done. “Now, we need to talk about Lise . . .”
“No, no, no, not so fast.” Jin wiggles a finger at her.
Quinn’s captive audience is not interested in despotic leaders or in her theories on time travel; they are firmly stuck on the cute islander cyborg king, and they won’t leave it alone. So Quinn expands the story—shows them the bracelets, gives sketchy details about the night of hot sex, the anxiety disorder, life on the boat, and the bizarre fact that he’s a king, with a small “k,” of an ancient culture.
Finally, they fall silent and contemplative.
“So you’re not in love?” Jin asks.
“I have no idea. We spent a few days together, he told me nothing about his life, and I blurted out how hopeless and insecure I am, and then we had sex. That’s what happens, isn’t it? You come across all vulnerable and insecure, and then someone wants to fuck you.”
“Pretty much. I see a pattern here. You keep falling in love with strange
men on remote islands,” says Jin.
“There’s no pattern. Mori was just a mistake.”
“Tig, what’s he like?” Jin asks.
“Well, he’s sort of chaotic and intense, and honestly, he’s probably a little bit crazy. But he’s also handsome. And charismatic. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”
“Okay, well . . .”
“And I’m drawn to him, on a sexual level . . .” Quinn reddens. “I’ve never experienced anything like this.”
Jin smiles. “Well, sex is—”
“And when I see him, my heart moves around my chest.” Quinn circles her chest with her hand. “Not physically, of course; it can’t physically move. But metaphorically . . .”
“Okay, we get it,” Jin says. “It sounds to me like—”
“And when he’s close—like, standing next to me, or not wearing a shirt—my heart goes wild. He overwhelms me. But that’s somatic; it’s not love. Did I say he was charismatic?”
“Yes, you did.” Jin clears her throat. “Moving on. What are you going to do about the baby?”
“Nothing. I’m going to have it. I want to. But none of this makes sense. Does it?” Quinn feels lost.
Jin shrugs. “It doesn’t need to make sense. It’s your choice. Nobody can tell you what to do.”
“I don’t want to do anything. I want to stay just like this.” Quinn touches her stomach. “I want to stay pregnant. I want to have this baby.”
“Okay, then.” Jin smiles. “Now, tell us about the sex.”
“No. We need to talk about what happened to Lise.” Quinn finally diverts their attention and explains how Lise may have cracked the code to a time travel portal. Then she tells them about the paper in Ada’s purse, and how it matches Tig’s tattoo.
“There’s a message in my diamond,” she concludes. “Might be an algorithm, I don’t know. But it has people worried, and Dirac is one of them.”
“Okay,” Jin says. “We need to act, and we need to do it now.”
“What’re we doin’?” asks Geller.
“We’re putting the diamond into a state of superposition so we can read the message,” Jin says. “We’ll need a QM, a good one; hardware and software, a factorization app, to process the numbers; an algorithm to break any security; and maybe an error-correction algorithm, to correct inaccuracies. And we need a lab—a very cold, quiet lab. eMpower has an office here. We’ll do it there, tonight. The place will be empty.”
Quinn likes the way she says “we.”
Jin hands her Band to Quinn. “Call Matt. He knows you’re here. I’ve had a dozen missed calls from him.”
***
Matt answers Quinn’s call immediately. “Quinn! Honey. Shit. Thank fucking Christ. Been so worried. Was told you were released, then nothing. What the fuck’s going on? You safe? You okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, it’s so good to hear—”
“Listen to me, listen very carefully, Lise might not be dead. They haven’t found her.”
“What?” How does he know?
“She might not be dead.”
“I know, but how do you know?”
“What, you know? Thought I was the only one who knew.”
“Yes, I know, and I thought I was the only one, but how do you know?”
“’Cause of Ada. It ain’t Lise, it’s Ada.”
Ada? Then the body switch has been sorted and everyone knows. “So everyone knows?”
“No, no one knows.”
“Dad, from the beginning: how do you know?”
“’Cause she’s right here. I got her in a casket, in the bunker. Delivered a month ago. Signed her over to me. You were incarcerated, and I was on the list. You see, the thing is, no postmortem analysis; there were too many casualties and the cause of death was obvious: drowning. She’s wearing Lise’s Band. Why the fuck would she do that?”
“I don’t know. It makes no sense.” Poor Ada. This is awful. “Does she have any family?”
“Don’t know. But if she does, then they think she’s still missing.”
“What do we do with her?”
“I’ll sort it out, see if I can find her family.”
“Okay, now it’s your turn to listen very carefully.”
Quinn recounts a version of the last few months, leaving nothing out except for every detail about Tig and the baby—her tale is Lise-centric, not Quinn-centric—and she promises to call her father when they open the diamond.
Just as she’s about to end the call she says, “One more thing.”
“Yep?”
“I’m pregnant. You’re going to be grandfather.”
There’s a long pause.
“You there?”
“Yep. So that Mori bloke—”
“No, no, not him . . . it’s a long story.”
A longer pause.
“Dad . . .”
“Come home.”
***
Jin waits at the food prep bench while Quinn melts chocolate; this is Jin’s favorite meal, melted chocolate covering a large spoon, the biggest they can find.
“I’d made peace with dying, until now,” she says. “Now I want to meet him, this Tig person, I want to know what’s going to happen to you, and I want to see that beautiful baby and hold it in my arms.” She laughs at herself; she’s holding something back.
Quinn narrows her eyes. “What is it?”
“Pregnant by a cyborg king—that’s what you get for trying to be in control all the fucking time.”
Quinn hands her the spoon and the bowl to catch the mess, and Jin shovels it into her mouth.
“This is it,” she says, “I don’t want anything else to eat, ever.” Chocolate drips down her chin.
They stare at each other because what she just said is the shocking truth. This moment together will be one of the last they have.
Quinn is the first to look away. Jin hands her the chocolate-covered spoon, but she doesn’t take it—she doesn’t want it. She wants Jin to have everything, and she doesn’t understand how the world works anymore and why this is happening. Everything is fucked up. Tears leak from her eyes, and she turns away.
The door springs opens and Geller bursts in, looking a little flushed and breathless. She has military backpacks slung over her shoulder and is wearing her climate suit, but it’s a mess—dark stains down the front and sleeves, like she’s also scoffed liquid chocolate and spilled it all over herself.
“Get your tings,” she says. “We need ta move. Civil war on te doorstep. De rebels ’ave gathered in ’exad. Tey’re preparin’ ta take back te capital. New Fed won’t last long. Overheard a private conversashun; Dirac knows your moter ’as solved some mystery of te universe—he’s just not sure which one.” She empties the backpack contents onto the table.
Quinn frowns, realizing it’s not chocolate on Geller’s suit. It’s blood. “You’re covered in blood.”
“Aye, I know. Dirac’s blood.”
“What?”
“I overheard sometin’, Niels talking to Dirac on te holo, he was goin’ off, abusin’ ’im. So I paid Dirac a visit. ’E wasn’t cooperative, but I expected tat, used a serum. Anyway, didn’t get te whole story—’e’s old, ’is brain’s not clear an’ ’is memories are muddled. Kept mumblin’ stuff about reality, said it was an illushun, a persistent illushun. Ten ’e said ’e was sorry, over an’ over. And ten he cut his wrists while I was makin’ tea.”
“He killed himself?”
“Aye.”
“While you were making tea?”
“Aye. It said on the label”—she retrieves a small vile of serum from the backpack— “it says, ‘After-effects include ’unger, dehydrashun, and general disorientashun.’ So after our little chat, I was makin’ ’im a cuppa tea an’ a snack in te food prep, an’ ’e did te deed. Slit his radial arteries. Notin’ to do about it, but I stayed wit ’im to te end, ’eld ’is ’and.”
“Considerate of you.”
“People shouldn’t be
alone when tey die. Least I could do.” She jumps up. “We need ta hurry. We don’t want ta be stuck ’ere durin’ te attack, an’ you’re a sittin’ duck, tey know you’re ’ere, an’ about te diamond. Some idiot called Aaroon wants it real bad. ’E’s comin’, wit military.”
There’s an awkward and immobile silence. What happens to Jin?
Jin turns to Quinn. “We go to eMpower and open the diamond, we get the message. Then you put me into CyberSleep. It’s what I want, it’s all set up, ready to go.”
Quinn shakes her head.
“Geller will do it if you won’t, and you promised, you said you would. We’re going, now—first the diamond, then CyberSleep.”
***
Geller pilfered the armory before coming over. One pack is stuffed with the ultimate war accessories—temporary night vision eye drops; chemical weapon antidote patches containing thousands of microneedles; nanobots that control shock and bleeding; chewable capsules that protect against infection. There’s also a collection of smart bullets, knives, and lasers. The second pack holds two new, military-issue wingsuits. Both packs are lined with a combination of iron and cobalt, giving them a magnetic imprint so the contents can’t be identified at security points. Geller turns the packs inside out, hiding the military insignias, and divides up the loot.
Quinn orders an AV and in a few minutes they’re on their way, travelling through the quiet streets towards the eMpower office. Jin is cold and calm, breathing easily. The afternoon is clear and a soft light falls over Accord—an ethereal, yielding glow that lingers in the trees and turns the ancient stonework a glorious peach. A state of nervous anticipation has settled over the city; retaliation is looming, and many more people will die tonight, tomorrow, and in the coming weeks. If Jin’s constitution reacts badly to the CyberSleep process, she could be one of them. Quinn feels lightheaded; she can’t get enough oxygen into her lungs.
At the eMpower office, Jin takes a seat in an empty lab. She paces herself, breathing slowly, as she checks the equipment, mentally ticking the requirements off her list. She nods; they have everything. Quinn hands her the stone.