by C. A. Gray
I blinked at her, processing this. That wasn’t a ‘yes’… and there was no way we would be going to a hospital. Did that mean without blood, Liam might not make it?
“Take mine,” I said, thrusting my arm at her. I’d just remembered my dad telling me once that my blood type was O, the universal donor. “I’m blood type O. Can you do that?”
She regarded me, and then regarded Liam. “There is still a risk of rejection, but without it, his odds are not good.” She nodded. “Stand here please, and stay upright. We will need the assistance of gravity.” She indicated a spot to Liam’s right. I did as she commanded. Hepzibah wiped the crook of my left elbow with alcohol for sterility, did the same thing to Liam’s right elbow. I winced as she pricked me and inserted a needle and tubing, connecting the tube to a bag for collection. Then she connected the bag to another set of tubing, pricked Liam’s arm, and connected the tubing there as well.
I couldn’t look at Liam. I couldn’t think about the possibility that this might not work.
I couldn’t think about the fact that I was now running for my life.
I couldn’t think about the fact that Mom was in the cockpit. That she was M. That she’d been orchestrating the Renegades’ every action… for how long? Since Dad died? Before that? Was her disgust with his conspiracy theories all an act?
Madeline. I needed her right now. But I’d left her in the hotel room back at the chateau, and there was no way I could go back for her now.
My netscreen. With a stab of fear, I suddenly realized—it would be easily traced to me. It was networked to the Commune, the network of devices Francis and Liam had connected belonging to Renegade members. I’d done countless hours of research on the labyrinth on it. It was connected to Mom, to Liam, to everyone I cared about…
I didn’t know how, but I was suddenly convinced that netscreen would be our downfall. Unless I found a way to get rid of it.
I reached into my pocket for my handheld. Nobody noticed—they were all too distracted, watching Liam, probably.
“Can’t come back to the room to get you,” I wrote to Madeline with my one free hand. “Long story, but we’re on the run, and I won’t be able to use the labyrinth to communicate with you after this. Is my netscreen near you?”
A second later the screen blinked. “Yes! Are you safe?”
“I’m safe. Do you know how to find the netscreen’s LP number?” Even if she didn’t, I knew she could search the labyrinth and find out how.
“Yes,” she wrote after a beat.
“Ok, is it possible for you to destroy the netscreen and change your own LP number to the one from my netscreen? That one is networked to the Commune. That way I’ll still be able to talk to you.” I figured that wherever we were going, at least we’d have Commune access.
A pause, and then she wrote, “Yes, I can do that!”
“Ok, then destroy the netscreen.”
Another pause. “Done.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Then she added, “What do you want me to do now?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t think beyond that.
“Hey!” snapped the guard—the one who had held the machine gun and pulled Liam, Francis and me into the open door of the hovercraft as he held off enemy gunfire. The sharpness in his tone drew everyone’s attention to me; I shut the handheld and slipped it back into my pocket guiltily.
“Are you stupid?” was Francis's droll comment, though he sounded a little loopy himself. “You know comms are traceable, right?”
“We’re in the air, it’s not like I sent it once we arrived wherever it is we’re going!” I snapped, more sharply than I’d intended. “Besides, our A.E. chips can be tracked too, if they know who they’re looking for!”
“Which is why we brought Hepzibah,” said the guard darkly. “She’s a neurosurgical bot, but was programmed with emergency medical training as well. Once Liam is stable, she’ll remove and destroy your A.E. chips before we arrive at the compound.”
For the first time I noticed that Larissa, Dr. Yin, Nilesh, and the guard all had a piece of gauze covering their left temples—the spot where the A.E. chip once was. Mom had had one too. That just left Liam, Francis, and me.
“It’s an odd feeling, being without it,” Nilesh commented. “A little like being naked. Or missing a limb.”
A hand flew to my own left temple. I rarely used it, preferring my handheld instead, but it was an odd idea that I’d never be able to access the labyrinth directly again.
“The surgery doesn’t hurt much though,” piped Larissa. “She’ll put you under, but not for very long! Throbs a bit, that’s all.”
I happened to glance on accident at the blood bag rigged up below me, at about waist level. I hadn’t felt lightheaded before, but it looked awfully full. Of my blood. I staggered one leg backwards a little, and steadied myself on the wall of the hovercraft cabin.
“That should be enough,” said Hepzibah, disconnecting the tubing from my arm. I sank—or rather, collapsed—to my knees beside Liam as soon as I was able, unable to resist looking at his face one more time. He had a little color back; his lips had lost the awful blue tinge, and his breathing deepened. I stroked the matted sweaty hair off his brow.
“Does that mean he’s going to be ok?”
In response, one of Hepzibah’s hands retracted to show an empty port, where she unwrapped and inserted a new needle, which she stuck into Liam’s other arm. I could tell by the way her eyes flashed back and forth that she was gathering information from his blood.
“No immune response yet,” she announced. “I believe he will live. I will remove his Artificial Experience chip while he is under.”
A sort of hysterical giggle of relief bubbled up in my throat; I tried to suppress it, but it came out anyway, choked and sounding a little like I was about to retch. I spontaneously planted a kiss on Liam’s clammy forehead. He did not stir.
I still felt unsteady, but used the wall to help me to my feet. Glancing at the guard, I asked, “How long before we get wherever we’re going?”
“Depends on how long it takes Hepzibah to remove ya’ll’s A.E. chips,” he said. “We’re circling until then.”
I nodded, fumbling with the cabin wall to propel me toward the cockpit.
Can Mom fly a hovercraft, too? What else don’t I know about her? I wondered. But no, once I arrived, I saw Mom in the copilot position. The hovercraft had a built-in pilot bot, of course. Mom glanced over her shoulder.
“You need to have your A.E. chip removed,” was all she said.
“I will. Hepzibah is stabilizing Liam and removing his and Francis’s first. Which means I have a little time. And since all you guys are doing is circling right now, so do you.”
She met my eyes, and sighed. “I suppose you want me to start from the beginning.”
“That would be good.” I couldn’t keep the iciness out of my tone.
Mom bit her lip, and drew up a crate behind her for me to sit on. I took it.
“I’ve always been in government intelligence,” she said. “All your life, under the pseudonym Candice Rio. That’s why I never told you much about what I did. But I used to actually believe in the Republic, Halpert, and all of them. That was why your father and I fought so much when he started to believe in all his conspiracy theories. He was criticizing men I held in high esteem, and criticizing what I did for a living, too.
“But I knew that Dr. Rasputin was engineering a strain of Treblar’s Disease as an agent of biological warfare. So when Quentin died suddenly of Treblar’s, along with so many of his colleagues, and right after he’d claimed to have discovered something ‘so dangerous’ that he couldn’t tell me about it, I became suspicious.
“I knew right where to go to find the Renegades—he’d told me all about them. I went to them with a new alias: Harriet Albright. I didn’t trust them, and of course didn’t tell them who my husband had been either.”
“And that was around the tim
e you said you kept having to travel for work,” I accused. “Or else take care of Aunt Caroline.”
“That was sometimes true,” Mom held up a finger, “and I did visit Aunt Caroline a few times too.” I glared at her, and she went on, “Over time, obviously, I came to agree with your father—too late for him to gloat about it, of course.” She smiled wanly. “So I did the next best thing: I used my position to benefit the Renegades, and in so doing, took over where he left off, as their leader.”
“All the while telling me that you still thought Dad was a crackpot.”
“I didn’t want you involved,” Mom protested, “I wanted to keep you safe. But, while I’m coming clean,” she ran a hand through her dark reddish brown hair, just like mine, “I might as well admit that I had ulterior motives in encouraging you to attend Dublin University as well.”
I blinked at her. “Liam,” I murmured. “You already knew him.”
She nodded. “I had long suspected that synthetic emotions and creativity had already been accomplished, though I didn’t think it had been done with Halpert and his board. I suspect that’s what your father learned that killed him; but I found that out when you did. I did steer you towards cognitive neuroscience because I wanted to ‘have a hand’ in the research, so to speak, and I knew that was what Liam was lacking in his own research. I knew that by telling Liam what I wanted him to focus on, based on what I learned in intel, he in turn would direct your course of study as well, and report it back to me.”
I shook my head, incredulous. “So the whole idea of his wanting me to study the nature of morality… that was you!”
She nodded, reaching a hand out as if to place over mine. But she thought better of it, and retracted it again.
Revelations were coming to me fast now. “And all your begging me not to go to San Jose, to go back to Dublin… and telling Liam and Francis to send me back, and even sending that comm to Dr Yin…”
“The comm wasn’t from me, that was from Mack,” Mom interjected. “You know him as John Doe.”
My mouth fell open. “You sent John Doe?”
She nodded, her expression mournful now. “You clearly weren’t listening to me, and I couldn’t truly persuade Liam to send you back without revealing my connection to you. Mack works with me in intel—or used to, anyway. I told him enough about you that I knew it would impress you, and thought he might be able to scare you away. But I knew Liam would recognize him if he saw him, which is why I told Mack to speak to you alone, and keep you from telling Liam about him at all if possible. After your phone call asking about your father’s colleagues, I knew you’d assume he was Randall Loomis.”
“That’s why he knew everything about what we were doing,” I said through gritted teeth. “Liam told you, and you told him.” She nodded, and I demanded, “So what did happen to Randall Loomis, then?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “He fled for his life, and was never heard from again. For all I know, he is dead.”
I closed my eyes, trying to process, but not succeeding very well. “Okay. You knew we were in Geneva because I told you, but how did you know exactly where to find us? Liam again,” I guessed, remembering that he’d said he’d updated M on everything that had happened after the meeting with Halpert, and told her where we were headed now.
“Not only Liam,” she corrected. “I was tracking your A.E. chip.” My mouth fell open, and she said, “Government. Remember?”
I processed this. “And you knew we were in danger…”
“During your meeting, Halpert must have excused himself briefly, right?”
I nodded, remembering that it seemed to throw all three of us off, even Francis.
Mom sighed. “He called his organization of assassins and told them to follow you after you left. They were not to touch you until you arrived at your destination, because he wanted to know who you were meeting and why—he had a hunch it would be Youssef or someone else involved in building him and his board. Once the assassins determined who it was and where they were, they were instructed to kill the three of you, plus whoever you were meeting with.”
I felt ill. I gripped the sides of the crate I sat on, leaning forward for a second and just breathing. I’d known it had to be something like this already, of course—obviously. Liam was in the cabin of the hovercraft fighting for his life. But—geez. William Halpert, the most powerful man in the world, had ordered my execution.
Things were never going to be the same.
If I even survived at all. Which was unlikely.
Mom gave me a minute, and then went on, “I’d managed to tap Halpert’s line just before the meeting took place; I’d been afraid of something like this. That was why I told Liam and Francis so strongly to send you back to Dublin before the meeting occurred. That was also why I begged you to go back to Dublin when you called me earlier today. I knew if you left before meeting with Youssef, you might still be safe. When you refused—” she threw up her hands. “I had only one option left.”
“Blow your cover, steal a hovercraft, and come after us yourself,” I said dully, looking at my feet.
I could feel her eyes on me. I looked back up at her. I should have apologized. I’d thought she was just overprotective and manipulative; that’s why I hadn’t listened. I hadn’t known what was at stake, for her or for me. If I had, of course I would have listened—but, “What about Liam and Francis, though? If I’d gone home, wouldn’t you still have tried to save them?”
“Of course I would have, but not personally. Rick, the guard who helped you, is my bodyguard, and I knew he’d do anything I asked. But since you were among those we were rescuing, I couldn’t take any chances.”
I was still angry, but… she’d given up everything to save me. Everything she’d worked for. She’d put her own life in jeopardy, too.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I murmured.
In response, she did reach out and place her hand over mine this time. “I’d been planning for something like this eventually,” she said. “I knew I’d have to run one day, sooner or later. I studied exactly how to disable the tracking system on a hovercraft, and how to sway the bots I’d need to come along and help me. Long before I got on board with any of this, I told your father about several abandoned corn silos in the midwest former United States—before I was in my current position, I was the Minister of Agriculture. He and his Renegades had already begun to build an underground compound beneath the silos—underground so that activity could not be spotted via satellite—with tunnels from each of them to offer multiple entrances and exits in case one of them was compromised. You can guess what I thought of this at the time. But when I came to believe as he did, I used my position to carefully divert funds in order to complete the construction, and supply it for our use. With multiple false trails to cover my tracks, of course.”
“You mean you laundered government money?” I gave a short, incredulous laugh.
She shrugged. “Well, your father and the Renegades funded what they could themselves, but I wasn’t in a position to do that when it was just me. I figured if we ever needed to flee for our lives, the least Halpert could do is put us up somewhere nice while we waited him out.” Her eyes twinkled a bit.
I turned my hand over and wrapped my fingers around her thumb; that was the part of her hand in easy reach, and I didn’t have strength to do much else.
“I should tell you one more thing,” Mom added tentatively.
I blinked at the floor beside her seat, and said in a dull voice, “What?” Better to get it all over with.
“Mack will be at the compound waiting for us,” she told me. “He risked his life every time he met with you. He did that for me.” She paused. “We’re… dating, Rebecca.”
Now I looked at her. My mouth fell open, and I dropped her hand. “For how long?” It came out more accusing than I’d intended.
She sighed again. “For about nine months, but we’d worked together and been friends for ye
ars.”
“When were you planning on telling me?” I demanded shrilly, “and geez, Mom, how old is he?”
“I wanted to tell you long ago, but I knew questions would come up about how we knew each other, and I wasn’t prepared to answer them yet. And he’s only about a decade older than I am, stranger things have happened!” Now she sounded defensive, but seemed to catch herself and held up her hands. “Look. I know you’re angry with me for lying to you—”
“About absolutely everything! You know, maybe if you’d told me who you were and what you knew, I would have listened and gone back to Dublin, and none of this would have happened!”
“Had I done that, I’d have placed both you and me in danger. I would have taken that risk if I’d known that this would have been the result otherwise, but I’d hoped I could persuade you by other means. If not by direct pleas, then by pressure through Liam, or through Mack, or through Dr. Yin. Maybe I chose wrong, but I did what I did because I thought it was the best way to protect you. Can you at least give me credit for that?” We stared each other down for a minute, and I felt myself relent. Then she added, softer, “I wanted you to meet Mack, long ago. I really did. I was glad I hadn’t introduced you to him when I realized the role I needed him to play, but as it turned out, it made no difference.” When I still didn’t answer after a long moment, she gestured to the cockpit door leading into the cabin with her chin. “How’s Liam?”
“Unconscious,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “Did he know you were my mother?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Of course not.”
So at least he hadn’t betrayed my trust.
She ventured in the same tentative tone, “I’m—sorry for some of the harsh things I said about Liam when we last talked. I was upset that he hadn’t tried harder to get you out of harm’s way, but I was really just upset that nothing I’d tried had worked. I took it out on him unfairly. I believe he really did all he could; you were just too stubborn to go.” She gave me a soft half smile. “Like your mother, and your father, as it turns out. You come by it honestly.”