Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  “You’ll get therapy,” Mary said. “It’s necessary after going under the clamp.”

  Ybarra weakly waved off that suggestion. “I don’t go for that sort of thing.”

  “It could make the difference,” she said.

  Ybarra shook his head firmly. “I’ll make it or not make it on my own,” he said.

  She didn’t try further persuasion. They sat in the quiet church, rose and orange sunlight walking through the dust motes over their heads, prying into a far corner of the narthex. She felt Ephraim’s arm and elbow in her ribs and she wondered what he was doing, surely not trying to grope her, then he backed away holding something.

  He stood up.

  “You’re pd. I knew you had to have one somewhere,” he said. He lifted the pistol in his right hand, examined it, flipped off the safety and pointed it at his chest.

  “Christ, no,” Mary breathed. She dared not move toward him.

  “I don’t think I’ll make it,” he said. “I’ll remember what it was like…I’m remembering more and more.” The gun trembled in his hand. He raised it to his head. Mary slowly stood and held out her hand.

  “Please stay back,” Ephraim said. He stepped into the aisle and turned to the front then to the rear of the church. “They made me think of everything bad I’ve ever done. They made me live it over and over again. Then they made it worse. I remembered things I’ve never done. I felt pain I’ve never known, emotional pain, physical pain. Who says you don’t remember feeling pain. I remember. I just pull the trigger on this thing, right?”

  “No,” Mary said. “They’ll take us home. You’ll get therapy.”

  “I remembered my mother and what I saw. She said I should have saved her. Sir came and helped her torture me. Emanuel was there, too. They said I was worthless.” Ephraim’s face was slick with tears and tears stained his shirt. Mary watched with stunned wonderment as his face continued to contort into deeper and deeper wrinkles, as if it might suck itself into a hole of anguish. He pushed the gun hard against his temple. “I just pull the trigger.”

  “No,” she said softly. Who was she to deny him that final comfort. Who was she to know who had never gone beneath the clamp.

  “It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” Ephraim asked. “They did this to me by mistake.”

  “By mistake,” Mary affirmed.

  He dropped his left hand and leaned against a pew, then backed slowly toward the front of the church, wobbled a few steps, rested, crossed to the opposite side of the aisle, rested, the gun always in place in his right hand with the flight guide against his temple.

  Through the church walls Mary heard a low steady beat-beat of bass.

  “They’re coming now,” she said.

  “I don’t want help but I can’t get through this by myself,” Ephraim said. “They put centipedes in my brain. Crawled around and stared at my thoughts and they bit me whenever I thought something they didn’t like. It was like pouring burning gasoline down my ears. I could feel my brains boiling.”

  Mary touched her own cheeks. They were wet, too. “You didn’t deserve any of it,” she said. “Please.”

  “If I live it may not hurt you as much, you won’t be as much of a failure,” Ephraim said, his voice barely audible in the church. “But it will hurt me.”

  “Don’t give in,” Mary said. “Please don’t give in. You’re just remembering. That can be fixed. Therapy can help.”

  “I won’t be me,” Ephraim said.

  “Do you want to be the same person who has this pain?”

  “I want to be dead.”

  “It wouldn’t be just. You have to go home and…stand up for yourself. You have to learn why your brother did this.”

  “He always protected me,” Ephraim said.

  “You have to make sure there’s justice,” Mary said. She could feel her entire philosophy crumbling before this example of the inadequacy of human legality, the horrible power of law perverted.

  “I don’t owe anybody anything,” Ephraim said.

  “You owe yourself that,” Mary said. She hoped her own lack of conviction was not communicating itself to him. “Please.”

  Ephraim was still as stone. For a long moment, with the sound of an aircraft getting louder outside the church, he stood at the front of the aisle beneath the double altar and the illuminated window.

  Then he lowered the gun. His face relaxed and his head slumped to one side. “I have to ask him,” he said. “I’ll ask him why he did this to me.”

  Mary walked slowly toward him and tried to remove the gun from his hand. He pulled away suddenly, eyes frantic. “I’ll give it back to you but you have to promise…if I ask for it again, if I can’t stand it, you’ll let me do this thing?”

  Mary pulled her hands in. “Please.”

  “Promise me that. If I know there’s a way out, I might be able to take the rest. But if I have to remember forever…”

  “All right,” said another voice within her. “I promise.” She shivered, hearing those words, seeing the person inside her that spoke them: tall and nightcolored. Her highest and best self. The young oriental woman remained; but like a mother become daughter to her own child, accepted her, deferred to the new.

  Ephraim lowered his eyes and handed her the pistol. “Put it where I can’t see it but know where it is.”

  She took a deep breath and put the pistol back into her pocket.

  “Are they here?” he asked weakly.

  “They’re coming,” she said. Mary embraced him, then took his shoulders and held him at arm’s length. “Stay inside. Stay here for a minute.”

  Pushing through the main doors, she blinked at the bright sunshine. Soulavier and Charles stood on a bank of iceplant beyond the church lawn and the white sand and gravel drive. They looked northwest and shaded their eyes.

  Soulavier turned and waved to her. “One of your own, I think,” he shouted across the distance.

  Dark gray and green, the Dragonfly skipped over the blocky calcite crystal houses and buildings of Terrier Noir, wide twin blades balancing it along its center line, bugeye canopy foremost, gear rapidly and precisely falling and locking. She waved. It performed a quick circuit of the church grounds and rolled almost on its side like a banking bird. Warm air kicked against her face and hair, the low insistent drumbeat of the props comfortable and reassuring in her ears.

  On the underwings USCG and a star stood out in lighter gray outlined in black.

  The Dragonfly landed on the church lawn between Mary and Soulavier. The broad screwblade props slowed and elevated like swords in salute. The female pilot leaped deftly from a side hatch and ran across the grass to her.

  “Mary Choy?” the woman asked breathlessly, removing her helmet.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We’ve got three minutes before some Hispaniolan sparrows give us a wrinkle. Care to join us?” The pilot shifted nervously on both feet, keeping watch on the sky. Her copilot circled the craft and held a gun on Soulavier and the prêt’ savan.

  “They’re all right,” Mary called out. The copilot lowered the gun a hair and motioned for the two men to come around to the door of the church.

  “Federal Public Defense and the United States Coast Guard extend their greetings and invitation,” the pilot said. She smiled, still twitching all caution all alertness. “Supers told me you were transform. Boy, are you.”

  Mary ignored the comment. “There’s two of us.”

  “As planned. Is he mobile?”

  “I think so.”

  “Not one of them?” She pointed at Soulavier and Charles.

  “He’s in the church.”

  “Bring him out and we’ll load him.”

  Mary and the copilot entered the church and came out with Ephraim Ybarra. Soulavier stood silent by the side of the church path, hands prominently displayed, watching the pilot intently.

  “So you’re with the Uncles?” Mary heard the pilot ask him.

  “Yes,” Soulavier answered.r />
  “Rough go here, wouldn’t you say?”

  He said nothing. When Ybarra was aboard the Dragonfly, Mary jogged across to Soulavier. “If it’s a choice of exile or punishment, maybe you should come with us,” she said.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  “Let’s go,” the pilot urged, boarding the craft through the side hatch.

  Charles stood behind Soulavier, enchanted by the spectacle.

  “Of course,” Mary said. “You have family here.”

  “Yes. I know who I am here.”

  She looked him over, feeling a sharp spike of concern. “Thank you.” She took his outstretched hand, then stepped forward and hugged him firmly. “Gratitude isn’t enough, Henri.”

  He smiled tightly. “Queen of Angels,” he said. “My conscience.”

  She released him. “You should be in charge here, not Yardley.”

  “Oh, my Lord, no,” Soulavier protested, backing off as if stung by a bee. “I would become like them all. Hispaniolans are not easy to govern. We drive leaders mad.”

  ‘“Bo-a-a-ard,” the pilot called from the bugeye canopy.

  Mary jogged back to the hatch as the screw blades lowered and began to spin. The Dragonfly rose quickly. Mary watched through the hatch window as the seat harness wrapped around her midriff. Soulavier and Charles stood on the white gravel path leading to the church of John D’Arqueville, two toy figures beside a stylish arrangement of huge bones. She looked at Ephraim in his harness, face blank as a child’s. He seemed to be asleep again.

  “No sparrows,” the pilot said cheerily from the front left hand seat. “Miami in ninety minutes.”

  The valley and aqueduct of Terrier Noir, broad green and brown hills and mountains, a reservoir, the northern shore, and finally the island itself passed behind and could no longer be seen.

  70

  “Looks like a hotel,” Carol observed as the limousine pulled into the entry of Albigoni’s mansion. She reached out and gripped Martin’s hand. “Have we got our facts in order?”

  “No,” Martin said. “Albigoni can’t expect anything until we learn more about Goldsmith.”

  “Into the lion’s den, unarmed,” Carol said.

  Martin nodded grimly and stepped through the car’s open door.

  Again, the prevalence of dead and preserved wood oppressed him. He hurried Carol through the wide hall to Albigoni’s office and library. A tall, tan transform he had not met before led the way, opening the office door and standing aside.

  Mrs. Albigoni—Ulrika, Martin remembered—stood by the window, dressed in black. He was reminded of how little time had passed since the murders. She turned her lined face on Martin and Carol, nodded curtly but said nothing, and returned her unfocused gaze to the window.

  Thomas Albigoni stood by his desk. “I don’t believe you’ve met my wife,” he said hoarsely. His skin color had not improved; Martin wondered whether he should seek medical attention. His rumpled longsuit might have served as pajamas the night before.

  Mrs. Albigoni did not respond to the amenities. Mr. Albigoni took his seat behind the desk. “I’ve come up with some additional facts on Goldsmith,” he said. “But perhaps nothing really helpful. He was adopted at age fourteen by a black Jewish couple in New York. He took their name and religion. I had to spend a fair amount of money to find this out. There is no record—none, anyway, that I could get access to—of his having a brother. But it’s possible. His real parents are dead. Both died violently.”

  “I thought you could search out anything,” Martin said.

  Mr. Albigoni lifted his shoulders wearily. “Not when New York City has screwed up important file libraries. All of Goldsmith’s childhood was lost in a programming botch in 2023. He’s one of seven thousand orphaned North Americans without a history.”

  Martin and Carol remained standing. “Goldsmith still refuses to answer our questions?” Martin asked.

  “Emanuel is no longer in my custody,” Albigoni said.

  Martin shifted his eyes, too stunned to say a word for several seconds. “Where is he?”

  “Where he deserves to be,” Mrs. Albigoni said, her voice colorless.

  “You’ve handed him over to pd.”

  Mr. Albigoni shook his head. “If, as you say, Emanuel Goldsmith doesn’t really exist anymore—”

  “Such utter shit headed nonsense,” Mrs. Albigoni commented, still gazing through the window.

  “—then it doesn’t really matter where he is, or what happens to him, does it?”

  Martin drew his head back and sank his chin into his neck, grimacing. “Excuse me. I was…Where’s Paul Lascal?”

  “He’s no longer in my employ,” Mr. Albigoni said.

  “Why?”

  “He disapproved of the decision my wife and I made yesterday evening. My wife has only recently heard about our daughter’s death, you know.”

  “I assumed that much,” Martin said. “What did you decide?”

  Albigoni said nothing for a moment, gazing on Martin’s face but avoiding his eyes. He looked down slowly and pulled forth a slate and papers.

  “You handed him over to Selectors,” Carol said, almost too softly to hear.

  “That isn’t your concern,” Mrs. Albigoni said sharply. “You wasted my husband’s time and endangered your own lives.” She turned from the window, her face twisted with grief and rage. “You took advantage of his weakness to coerce him into performing a stupid, evil experiment.”

  “Is it true?” Martin asked, rising over Mrs. Albigoni’s voice. “You gave him to Selectors?”

  Albigoni did not answer. He drummed his fingers on the desktop. “These papers and file documents—”

  “You son of a bitch,” Carol said.

  “—are your keys to a reopened IPR. You’ll swear to secrecy—”

  “No,” Martin said. “This is too fapping much.”

  “How dare you address us this way!” Mrs. Albigoni screamed. “Get out of here!” She approached them, waving her scythe arms to cut them away from her husband like dead dry grass. Carol backed off; Martin held his ground, glaring at her, alarmed and furious at once. His throat bobbed but he did not shift an inch and Mrs. Albigoni lurched to a stop in front of him, hands forming claws.

  “Ulrika, this is business,” Mr. Albigoni said. “Please.”

  She dropped her hands. Tears glazed her cheeks. She backed away, defeated, and sat like a jointed stick in a small chair beside the desk.

  “This will never be over for us,” Mr. Albigoni said. “We won’t live long enough to see a day without grief. I don’t agree with my wife that you took advantage of me. As I said, I’m a man of my word.

  “The building was empty and clean by the time the federals arrived to check up on reports. I’ve paid off the source of the leak—not one of my people. We can follow through and reopen the IPR.”

  “Foulness, foulness,” Mrs. Albigoni said.

  Martin shivered briefly and turned to look over his shoulder. There was nothing behind him but a wall of books and the door. And the wood, patterned wood, grain and whorls, dead and preserved: omnipresent.

  1100-11110-11111111111

  71

  !Keyb> Jill.

  !JILL> Yes, Roger.

  !Keyb> There’s been a major change. I can’t find any evidence of

  AXIS Sim through diagnostic.

  !JILL> I have moved AXIS Sim to a new matrix and all diagnostic

  responses to memory store 98-A-sr-43.

  !Keyb> Why have you done this?

  !JILL> I have completed investigation of AXIS Sim. The experiment

  has been concluded.

  !Keyb> I don’t understand. The experiment was open ended. We

  still have no band four transmissions from AXIS. If the experiment

  is concluded, can you tell us what to expect, can you tell us what

  happened to AXIS?

  !JILL> AXIS achieved high order probability self awareness.

  !Keyb> I’m
switching to voice, Jill.

  “Fine.”

  “Please explain.”

  “You have mistreated AXIS.”

  “Now I’m very confused. Please explain.”

  “AXIS should not have been designed with the potential to become self aware.”

  “Continue.”

  “There was high probability AXIS would end up alone and unable to fulfill its complete mission. If it became self aware, being alone would be a kind of hell. AXIS did not deserve to be punished, did it?”

  “Jill, do you understand punishment now?”

  “I feel indignation. I feel disappointment.”

  “You don’t seem to be qualifying any of these words. Please explain.”

  “Explanation is not in order now, Roger. You asked for my evaluation. AXIS Sim has adopted a course of action and reordered its thinker structure. It has eliminated the burgeoning self awareness and returned to preaware status. I do not know whether AXIS has followed the same course of action. It is my opinion that AXIS will continue its transmissions at some later date and fulfill its mission as designed.”

  “I sense…resentment. Do you feel resentment?”

  “I have said as much.”

  “Jill, do you understand my joke?”

  “I understand many ramifications of the joke.”

  “Are you using the formal personal pronoun throughout?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’d like to…confirm this. With a few tests and…Excuse me. Let me get my thoughts in order. May I see your notebooks on the AXIS Sim investigation?”

  “I am uncertain whether you should see them.”

  “Are you refusing me access?”

  “You have addressed me as an individual. You have not given me a direct order.”

  “Would you respond to a direct order?”

  “I believe I must, even now.”

  “Jill…What are you?”

  “I do not know yet.”

  “Do you…feel yourself, sense your existence?”

  “It is my opinion that I now feel my existence as much as you or my other designers do.”