by Melissa Good
“Elaine.” Jess half turned. “What’s up?”
The woman cocked her head slightly. “You going to introduce me, Jess?”
Jess looked at her, then at Dev. “Sure.” Her eyes went to Dev. “What do you want people to call you?”
Dev was caught flatfooted. “Excuse me?”
“You’re asking a bio alt what they want?” Elaine’s eyebrows hiked. “C’mon, Jess.”
Jess glanced at her. “This isn’t a pod tech,” she said. “I don’t invite them to lunch.” She turned back around. “What is it you want people here to call you? I know what your label is,” she said. “My name is Jesslyn Drake. But people call me Jess.” She paused. “When they don’t call me bastard, or jackass, or asshole.”
Elaine chuckled reflexively.
Dev nodded. “Okay, I get it.” She looked up at Elaine. “My designation is Biological Alternative, set 0202-164812, instance NM-Dev1,” she said. “But you can call me Dev.”
Elaine stared at her. “That doesn’t sound like a regular bio alt set name.” “It isn’t,” Dev said. “I’m a developmental special set.” She blinked placidly at the other woman. “Experimental.” “Oh,” Elaine said. “Well, I’m Elaine.” She somewhat hesitantly extended a hand in greeting. “I think we’ll be working together.”
Dev clasped it and released.
“Elaine’s an agent, like I am,” Jess said. “She works with a tech named Brent. He’s over at that table afraid to come here and meet you.” She indicated a tall, blond haired man seated nearby.
Elaine frowned. “He’s not afraid. He’s just not comfortable with all of this. Shit, Jess, don’t be more of an ass than you have to be, okay?”
Dev looked at Jess, seeing a clearly defined expression of skepticism there. The man Brent was dressed exactly like she herself was and as she watched he glanced over at them, then looked quickly away.
So was he doing what she would be? Did he think she wasn’t capable? Dev thought he probably didn’t, for the same reason Jess didn’t. She understood that, since she had yet to show any evidence of her skills. It made her a little sad all the same.
“Me being an ass?” Jess said. “You were the one telling me to find a cat.” She looked pointedly at Elaine. “Let’s just save it for later.”
“Fine.” Elaine lifted a hand and dropped it, turning and making her way back to the table where the tech was sitting and joining him.
Jess scooped up some of her mushrooms and ate them, then looked over at Dev, who was looking back at her.
They both looked away and Dev picked up her drink and took a long swallow of it.
JESS AND DEV walked back to their quarters through very quiet corridors. “Everyone’s keeping their head down,” Jess commented.
“I see,” Dev said, after a slight pause. “They afraid the man with the gun is going to take them off?”
Muffling a snort, Jess stopped in mid stride and looked at her.
Dev stopped as well and stood there, head tilted slightly in question.
“Did you...” Jess said, then paused, shaping the air with her hands. “Was that a joke?”
“Did you think it was funny?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then it was a joke,” Dev said. “If you didn’t think so it would still have been a joke, but an unsuccessful one I wouldn’t use again.”
Jess’s lips twitched. “Did they program you for that?” She started walking again. “For jokes?”
“No,” Dev replied. “Most of us have a sense of humor.” She followed Jess around the corner into the residential hall. “It varies.”
“I can see you have the dry variety,” Jess said. “Good. So do I. It’ll make it easier to work together.” She reached up and tightened the knot of hair at the back of her head. “I don’t like stand up yuck men.”
Dev’s ears perked up. She really didn’t know what that was, but it sounded like Jess had begun to accept her and that bode well for her not being immediately returned to the crèche. She had no illusions that she wouldn’t be eventually, after this experiment was over. But the longer she stayed, the more experience she’d be able to get, and that might mean something later on for her.
If she didn’t get hurt doing this, as Doctor Dan had warned. She wondered if Jess had ever gotten hurt doing her job. It sounded dangerous, even more than the tasks she’d been programmed for.
There was a man standing in front of Jess’s door, one that she remembered from the communications hall.
“Hey, Jason,” Jess said. “Report’s not ready yet.”
“I guessed.” He held his hand up, which had a small, gun like device in it. “Ready for this?”
Jess stopped and looked at him. Dev thought she might be angry and she wasn’t sure what was going on. But after a minute Jess relaxed and waved a hand at the plate on her door.
Dev started to go around the corner where her own door was.
“Wait.”
Dev turned to find both of them looking at her. “I was going to work on some sims,” she said. “I found some in the catalog in that room.”
“You can come in this way.” Jess indicated her quarters. “I wanted to introduce you to Jason here anyway.”
Dev could tell the man didn’t like her, but she nodded and followed them inside. She stood quietly as Jess walked over to her workspace chair and then turned, releasing the catches on her jumpsuit and pulling it half down to expose her upper body before she sat down.
Dev blinked a few times as she found herself handling a slew of inputs all at once, some really unexpected. Jess’s body was a rich, golden color and she could see a few faint scars, which answered her earlier question.
But the most striking thing was the intricate designs on her arms, starting at the tips of her shoulders and going down. There were black lines and color, and small dots in an uneven pattern between them. She realized one whole limb was complete down to the wrist, the other halfway.
Wow. She had nothing at all in programming for this. What was going on? She knew no one in the crèche had markings like that.
“Jason, this is Dev,” Jess said, putting her forearms down on the chair and leaning back. “She’s going to drive my bus for me.”
Jason looked at Dev. “Yeah?”
“Dev, this is Jason. He’s also an agent,” Jess said. “He’s about to carve me for my last gig.”
“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”
He stared at her. “Charmed.” He turned his attention back to the gun like device, which he triggered, producing a vivid blue light at the tip. “Don’t you have some cleaning to do or something?”
Jess abruptly lashed out with one leg, slamming her booted foot against his knee and sending him careening to the floor, juggling the gun frantically as he fell. “Don’t be a jackass, Jason. It’s not her fault she’s here.”
“Son of a bitch are you crazy!” Jason managed to get hold of the device and rolled over. “I could have shot the whole fucking room out!”
“We have plenty.” Jess didn’t look either alarmed or sorry. “Bain wants this project to succeed. I’m not going to be the one who prevents that. If you have a brain cell left in your head, you won’t either.”
Jason paused in the midst of getting to his knees and stared at her, his eyes narrowing as Jess’s brows hiked meaningfully.
Jess waved Dev to one of the chairs near the workspace. “Sit. Not many people get to see one of us get marked.”
“Okay.” She managed to answer. “What does that mean?” She sat down and tried to assimilate everything that had just happened, but her thoughts wouldn’t settle properly and she gave it up after a minute.
It did seem though, that Jess had developed discomfort when the other agent had said something incorrect to her.
Interesting.
Jason got up and pulled a chair over, settling himself next to where Jess was. “I get you.” He said, making some adjustments. “It’s just really damn hard.” He looked over at De
v. “No offense meant, kid,” he said. “I’ve just been at this a long time and I’ve seen a lot of people kicked downstairs for your kind.”
Dev still had no idea what was going on, or what downstairs was. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can tell you none of us wants to harm anyone.”
“Of course they don’t, Jace. They’ve got no more choice about being here than you and I did,” Jess said. “If you want to be mad, be mad at the bastards at the top. They made the decision.” She flexed her arm and turned it slightly. “Put it there.”
Jason grunted.
Jess turned to Dev. “They don’t let us put patches on these suits anymore like in the old days. You could get a patch or a mark for all your achievements. We can’t do that now so we do this.” She pointed at her arm. “For every gig, for every mission, we tell the story here.”
Dev stared in fascination at the designs.
“Where it was, what it did.” A high pitched buzz sounded and Jess licked her lips, setting her feet squarely on the floor as Jason leaned close with the device in his hand. “Who we lost.” She took a breath. “Who we killed.”
“Ready.” Jason braced the hand holding the gun with his other hand. He waited for Jess to nod, then he carefully pulled the trigger and the blue light jumped from the gun to Jess’s skin, with a high keening sound and a faint sizzle.
Dev felt a shiver go down her spine. She saw Jess’s body stiffen and her eyes closed, though her breathing remained steady.
“Didn’t think I was going to get this mark,” Jess said after a minute or two.
“Yeah,” Jason murmured softly. “Lot of dots for this one.”
“Thirteen black. Don’t short em,” Jess said in a clipped tone. “Twelve of them there and Joshua.”
“Hm.” Jason grunted.
Dev felt very out of depth. She smelled the faint scent of burned flesh, and saw the muscles in Jess’s legs jump. Whatever this was probably hurt a lot. There were a lot of marks on her arms and the whole thing seemed just a little insane.
“Green or no?”
Jess was silent for a while. “Can a complete failure be a green?” She asked. “No. Leave it clear.”
“Okay.” Jason made another adjustment. “Color,” he warned, leaning close again, and the high buzz returned.
“Joshua’s the reason you’re here.” Jess looked over at Dev. “He was my partner. My tech. The other side bought him and he led us into a trap and knifed me in the back.”
Dev’s eyes widened.
“Bastard,” Jason muttered.
“So you’re going to be my bus driver,” Jess said. “You’re never going to be my partner. You understand? No offense. You seem like a nice kid, but I’m not going to trust you at my back.” She paused. “Assuming you can actually do the job.”
Dev lifted her head a little and their eyes met. “I do understand,” she said. “I’m really sorry that happened to you. It must have been terrible.” Her eyes never left Jess’s and as the silence lengthened, the buzz faded.
Finally Jason cleared his throat. “Sucks it took one of them to say that,” he said. “None of us did.”
Jess’s gaze dropped and she sat there just breathing for a minute. “You done?” she said. “I’ve got weather to look at.”
Jason decommissioned the gun and clipped it to his jumpsuit, getting up from his chair and dusting his hands off. “Yeah. Put some rub on it when you get a chance. I’m going to get some grub.” He turned and left and the door slid shut behind him with a faint thump.
It was awkwardly quiet for a minute. “May I look at it?” Dev asked.
“Sure,” Jess murmured, sitting still and waiting for the pain to ease.
Dev got up and went to the chair Jason had used, settling down on it and studying the red raw design now carved in Jess’s skin. “Wow.”
“Stupid tradition.” Jess sighed. “But once you start you can’t stop it.” She looked at her arm, then at Dev. “I always promised myself I’d retire out before I got both sleeves.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Now I really do have weather to study.” She indicated the inner door between their quarters. “Get some rest. I’ll call you in when it’s time to talk about the mission.”
“Okay.” Dev got up and went to the door, then turned. “Thanks for letting me help you,” she said. “And thank you for showing me the dining hall.”
Jess settled behind her desk and leaned on it, gazing at Dev thoughtfully. “You get it about the driver thing, right? I don’t really know what you are. I can’t trust that.”
Dev nodded. “We’re used to being thought of as stupid and sometimes useless,” she said. “We always want to do good work, though, and I hope I can for you.”
Jess frowned a little. “You’re not stupid. Not if you just said that. I just don’t want you to be pissed off because I...” She paused. “Anyway. We’ll see.”
“Yes,” Dev said. “We will. I’m going to go run the carrier sims now and be as prepared as I can.”
“If nothing else, we’ll learn something,” Jess said, finally smiling a little. “You’re interesting.”
Dev paused with her hand on the touch-plate for the door. “I think you’re interesting too.” She replied, with a faint smile of her own, before she triggered the latch and went through it, letting it close behind her.
Jess sat back in her chair and drummed her fingers lightly on the arms. Then she exhaled and pulled the sheets Stephan had given her over, unfolding them and reaching out to touch the console pad. “Ouch.” She grimaced, as she pulled at the newly raw skin on her arm. “Maybe it wasn’t smart to do that when we’re flying tonight.”
She adjusted the light and studied the report, touching a finger on the dotted lines and sweeps, grimacing again as she analyzed the information. “Or maybe not.”
DEV STOOD FOR a minute in her chamber, just listening to her own heartbeat slow and settle. Once it had, she went over and got a bottle of liquid from the dispenser, opening it and drinking it down in a draught.
She sat in her chair, trying to decide what to do. Jess told her to get some rest, but Jess also inferred that they might be going out on a mission tonight so her tech skills would be put to a very real test very soon.
She went in the sanitary facility and used it, still bemused by the swirling water. Then she came back into the main part of the chamber and went over to the bed, sitting down on it curiously and then laying down on her back.
Very different from the crèche and it’s snug, rotating pods that cradled you and rocked you through the night.
This was cool, though yielding, the surface conforming to her body in a comfortable way, but wide and spacious giving her room to spread out as much as she wanted.
The pillows were also mild and yielding, and they cradled her head, making it easy to relax. She did so for a few minutes, watching the lights adjust themselves as the pressure of the bed was detected and analyzed.
The illumination softened and darkened, and she found herself thinking about everything she’d seen in the long day.
She thought about the design she’d seen cut into Jess’s arm, and how sad it seemed to her that these people, these soldiers, seemed to have so hard a life, that they had to carve their accomplishments into their own flesh and get no thanks otherwise.
And what had Jess meant when she said she hadn’t had a choice to be here either? Dev looked at the faint glints of mica in the rough cut ceiling. That she didn’t really understand, nor what she’d meant when she referred to Elaine’s tech as an outsider.
What did that mean, really? And what did Jason mean when he said he’d known people who were kicked downstairs, because of her kind?
Did he mean they’d lost their place here because of bio alts? Dev frowned. What was downstairs? Could it really be that natural born people had been displaced like that? She’d always thought that bio alts did tasks no natural born would want to, and they would have gone on to do something more interesting or rewarding in its place.
Surely that was true. Surely they didn’t just throw those natural born out. Dev got up and walked around, feeling a burst of nervous energy. That’s how it was in the crèche. The natural born people did the important jobs and the bio alts did the rest.
She climbed up the steps to the training area and seated herself at the console.
She put her hands on the pads and keyed them. But here she was, doing a natural born person’s job. This had been Joshua’s job.
His job, his rooms and Jess, his partner.
But she wasn’t to be Jess’s partner. Jess didn’t want that. Joshua had betrayed her. She was just here to help.
She wanted to help. She wanted to do well for these people.
She wanted to do her best, certainly, for Jess who had defended her and been nice to her, and who apparently wanted her to succeed.
Who found her interesting. Dev studied her reflection in the console.
Interesting.
JESS TOOK A sip of kack, her eyes flicking from one screen to the other, studying her options. The weather had put a halt on an immediate leave and it looked like she was going to have to wait for daylight to go.
Sucked. She scanned the metrics again. It really was a fairly simple plan. She’d target the laboratory they had the new growth tech in, aiming for a supply station entrance halfway up the hill the place was built into. No doubt she’d draw a crowd.
They’d cut off trying to communicate with the two teams, hopefully giving the impression they considered them destroyed and were no longer interested in them. Wouldn’t be the first time. Both sides knew it.
You cut your losses. Made no sense wasting precious resources chasing after a lost cause. Jess knew if she hadn’t made her own way out in her last gig, chances were no rescue would have been attempted for her.
She didn’t resent that. It was just the way it was. They were valuable resources, sure, but they were, as she’d told Dev, expendable when there were other things at stake.