Whether it’s doing any kind of permanent damage. That doesn’t start for another week, we came in early to catch the concert and because Da has stuff to do as part of the Festival. It would really help if the doctors had my genetype to look at, as well as me, but,’ he sighed and shrugged, and stole another glance at Callan, who was regarding him thoughtfully from the chairbag. ‘It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.’
‘Bad,’ observed Herran. ‘Need data.’
‘I … yes, exactly.’ He wondered whether it was possible to truly convey his frustration to someone whose emotions had mostly been excised. ‘It would be easier to deal with being ill if I knew what I was ill with, and how bad it might get. Is it going to stabilise, or go away, or get worse? At the moment I don’t know, and I hate that.’ Herran blinked, expressionless, but Callan was sitting up straight, elbows on knees, looking concerned. ‘I hate feeling like it’s just happening, and I don’t understand, and I can’t do anything about it. I guess the good thing is at least now I feel like I am doing something. Back home everyone’s worried and they want to help, but they don’t really get it. They keep telling me to rest.’ He raked aggravated hands through his own short ruby-shimmer of hair. ‘That’s the last thing I need.’
Herran appeared to consider this. ‘Gwen no?’
‘Gwen knows …’ He caught Callan about to explain, and shook his head at him. ‘No, I’ve got it, I think. Gwen does know, she’s the only other person who really understands what it’s like for me, but it doesn’t happen to her. We don’t know why, so part of the worry is that it’s just hit me first.’
‘You find fix, fix for her too.’
‘Maybe. If she needs it. She might not.’
Herran nodded and rocked and blinked at him. Finally he said, ‘Need more work,’ and turned away to the screens. Rhys watched the lines of code shift and morph for a minute, then turned back to Callan with a sigh.
‘That,’ he said, ‘just about sums it up.’
*
They left Herran morosely examining the coding minutiae of a museum archive, and threaded their way through the warren of the Squats. Callan had suggested they pick up some lunch from one of the stalls on the high street and go sit by the river. Rhys’ assumption that Herran would join them had been met by a blank stare from him and an emphatic shake of the head from Callan, who explained as they trotted down a flight of stairs to the ground floor.
‘He doesn’t understand why anyone would prefer to sit and look at the water rather than at a tablet screen. He accepts that they do, but he finds it baffling.’ He glanced sideways at Rhys. ‘Of course in your case you probably won’t just be daydreaming like the rest of us. You’ll be calculating currents based on eddy patterns, and boat speeds from triangulating the height of the wake.’
Rhys hunched his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘It’s not that bad.’
‘I didn’t say it was bad at all. I think it’s a fascinating ability. I think it’s even more fascinating that using it might actually help keep you healthy. That’s the opposite of the Syndrome.’
‘Yeah. But you know, I’m not completely certain that it really does help. I mean, I keep my brain as busy as I can and I still get … it. Sometimes.’
They exited Maryam House into a blaze of summer sunshine. Rhys drew a deep breath. ‘Callan. Thank you for, you know, not doing a runner.’ The other man turned around at that, looking mystified. ‘I – I mean, you don’t seem to mind.’
‘Why would I mind?’
‘I don’t know. People do. Nobody’s supposed to ever have anything wrong with them.’ He tried to shrug carelessly, felt his shoulders tighten even further. ‘Half the time I feel like some kind of deviant.’
Callan grinned at him, mischief sparkling in his eyes. ‘There’s deviants and deviants, Rhys. If you like …’ He took in his companion’s gloomy face and broke off, shaking his head. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about it. Look, whatever it is you have, it’s not you. If you don’t feel it should be the main thing that people think about when they think about you, well, I agree.’
‘I can’t pretend it’s not a big deal right now though.’
‘But that’s because instead of ignoring the problem, you’re trying to solve it. Right?’
‘Yes …’
‘So that’s your focus, and it is completely sensible and necessary. And if I can help I will.’ They swung onto the high street. ‘The way I see it, at some point you’ll have worked it all out, hopefully you’ll have found a cure, and it’ll be history. Just one small part of who you are.’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘So what’s there for anyone to mind about that?’
Rhys found himself smiling back, his spirits lifting. ‘Nothing, I guess. When you put it like that. I just don’t hear it put like that very often.’
They slowed down to peruse the offerings from food stalls and cafés. Callan guided them to the rear of one of the longer queues and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked pensive, and a little sad.
‘I talk a good game, Rhys,’ he said quietly, as they edged forward. ‘But I was almost killed a few years ago. I lost people who were close to me. It’s taken a while – it’s still taking a while – for that not to be the biggest part of my life.’
‘Oh. I see. I mean I already knew … but I get it. That’s why Ari was fussing over you.’
‘That’s right.’ Callan’s eyes were still distant. ‘She doesn’t need to, not any more. I, like you, am mostly fine. But I know that feeling, when you’re struggling to get well. You need help but you don’t want to feel like the only thing you are is a damaged— is someone who needs help.’
He was watching the pair at the front of the queue, a squat woman with blazing blue hair drawn up into a bun next to an older gillung man with short, deeply bowed legs who leaned against a walker, breathing heavily as he collected and paid for their food. He handed the parcels to the woman and they moved slowly off. Rhys and Callan stepped forward. Callan sighed and shook himself, and turned to Rhys. The smile was back, the melancholy gone.
‘Anyway. So. I get how boring it is when all anyone asks is how you are. How’s your sister?’
Rhys burst into laughter. ‘She’s fine.’
‘Enjoying being the toast of the town?’
‘I think she’s trying to work out what to do with all the attention. Whatever she expected, this has exceeded it.’
‘Did she come to London just to launch her singing career, or is she getting tested as well?’
‘She did mostly want to go to the concert, I think, meet Lyriam and all her other onstream musician friends and see what might develop. She is going to come to the hospital with me, provide samples for comparison, although,’ he shrugged as they moved up almost to the front of the queue, ‘with the gender difference and no genetype for cross-matching, I’m not sure how useful that’ll be.’
‘And she’s never had any symptoms? Does she use her abilities as much as you?’
‘She uses them differently. She’s not much of a hacker, but her sensory awareness is amazing. She processes sound way more than I do.’
‘That’s handy in a singer.’
‘Yeah. We think it might have been what started her off when we were kids. Making sounds for her brain to play with, like scratching an itch.’
Callan took a moment to digest this.
‘So by training herself to sing she’s actually set up a feedback loop?’
‘We think so.’
‘And she never gets ill, and you do. It seems to me that what we’ve got to work out, Rhys, is what’ll scratch your itch.’
He could think of no response to that other than the flush that washed over his cheeks. He hoped, not for the first time, that the darkness of his skin was sufficient camouflage.
The flirting had started on the way home last night, so gently he had barely registered it at first. Callan’s manner seemed calibrated to let him respond in kind, or back away with no hard feel
ings. But once again he suddenly felt too tongue-tied and clumsy to come up with an equally witty reply. So he stayed silent while they got their sandwiches and drinks and strolled down to the quayside that served the Squats in lieu of a town square, trying to think of something to say without seeming a fool.
‘Why three?’ he blurted finally.
‘Three what?’
‘The language feeds you were talking about. The Bel’Natur training.’
‘Oh. That’s as many as I could process at a time without getting a headache. They’d do different sets of three, though, one after the other.’ He looked at Rhys curiously. ‘Why? How many do you think you could do?’
‘Four or five, I reckon. Maybe six once I got into the rhythm of it.’ He took in Callan’s expression, and squirmed with embarrassment. ‘I mean, umm, I don’t know if I’d really learn them … I don’t have your enhanced language centres, not as far as I know anyway …’
‘We could try to find out.’ Callan straddled a bench and set his food down in front of him. Rhys did the same, more slowly, watching the firebright hair tumble forward again as Callan unwrapped the packages. A real flame would have seemed pale out here in the sunshine, but the glowing red-gold mane sparkled like a jewel. Callan straightened up, shaking it back and frowning in thought as he licked his fingers. Rhys hastily bit into his own sandwich.
‘Rhys. Pardon the rude question, but what were you and Gwen for?’
Long pause while he chewed and swallowed the too-large bite. Callan started in on his own lunch, watching him.
‘We don’t know,’ Rhys said finally. ‘We were rescued by Da and the others. We were only little and there’d been some kind of accident, a fire … I’m not sure exactly what happened, but they found us first and got us away. I know there were no records or anything, and it’s not like they could ask around, not back then and especially not with them being Remnants. If word had got out that they were raising gem kids up in the mountains …’ He shuddered. ‘By the time we were older and things had got a bit better out in the world, Da and Ari tried to find out, only the gemtech had gone out of business. Ari thinks we might have been another unregistered experiment.’
‘Like her.’
Rhys nodded.
‘Did you come from the same place?’
‘I don’t think so. Ari doesn’t like to talk about it, but we know she wasn’t rescued, she escaped. She’s thirteen or fourteen years older than us, and you know,’ Rhys shrugged elaborately to indicate himself, ravaged sandwich in one hand, and rolled his eyes at the sky. ‘Not much in common, is there?’
Callan laughed. ‘Well, not to look at, no. But she’s also very smart.’
‘Da thinks she’s the smartest person we know, or are ever likely to. I don’t disagree. But her capabilities are still normal-spectrum. Gwen and I are something else. Like Herran.’ He rubbed at a smear of mayonnaise on the corner of his mouth. ‘Like you.’
‘I’m mostly normal. My enhancements are very specific. You missed a spot.’ He leaned forward and brushed it away, so quickly and casually that Rhys thought he might have managed not to blush. ‘And Herran’s alteration might be radical, but it’s also specific. It seems to me that what you and Gwen have covers a broad range. Very high IQ, acute powers of observation and sensory analysis, and if the way she handled the Reversionists is anything to go by, one or two physical enhancements. Am I right?’
Rhys blinked and squirmed. ‘Well, yeah. Although Da says don’t assume some of it isn’t just the benefits of growing up in fresh mountain air.’
‘Maybe some of it is. But I’m guessing not all of it.’
‘No, but that part isn’t too sophisticated. Speed, strength, coordination. Standard manual labour stuff.’ He shifted on the bench, considering whether to say more, and then added, ‘Except for the sit-sense.’
‘The what?’
‘Situational awareness. We don’t know what else to call it. It’s not really cognitive, more like an instinct. It’s how I knew Ari was coming up behind us last night. Knowing exactly where everyone is in a room, even if they’re moving around.’
‘Are you serious?’
Rhys bit, chewed. ‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Do you know who’s behind you? Right now?’
He swallowed. The sandwich was very good, and almost gone. He spoke softly. ‘The Recombin woman and the man with the rickety legs who were two places in front of us in the queue. They were sitting on a bench in the shade. They’ve finished eating now, and they’ve just come up to the rail. A couple of norms who were there before them are walking away towards the high street.’
Callan was staring. His eyes flicked up, looking over Rhys’ shoulder at the couple leaning against the safety rail, then tracked right to follow the receding backs of the norms. They came back to Rhys’ face.
‘Wow.’ He raised his eyebrows enquiringly. ‘Anything else?’
‘Not really. You already know about the night vision.’
‘Oh yes. Very handy, that.’ He crumpled up the empty packaging and stretched, leaned lazily back on propped arms. ‘Well, that is one hell of a suite of abilities, way more than I’ve ever heard of anyone else having. You two must have cost a fortune. I don’t know what to make of it.’
‘Neither do we.’
They went quiet. Callan looked sideways, out over the river, relaxing into an elegant, indolent profile. It took Rhys a moment to follow his gaze out to the water. He could feel himself doing what he had been teased about earlier, perhaps a little more consciously than usual as his brain seized on the distraction: calculating distances and depth and angles of refraction. He knew that if he had to he could plunge into the river and swim across it at a speed that could probably only be bettered by a gillung. He felt suddenly depressed.
‘Does it matter?’
‘What?’
‘What we were for.’
‘Not to me.’ It came out absently, and he could see Callan catch himself. ‘Not to any of us. But if we knew, we might have a better idea of what’s going on with you and how to help. Did the gemtech specialise in anything?’
‘Not that we know of, but there was something very weird about the lab where they found us. Da says it was a few miles out of some village that’s not even there any more. No one hardly seemed to know it existed until it burned down.’
‘Not even him?’
‘No, it was well outside their normal range. Too close to civilisation, especially back then. They were passing through for some reason and heard the explosion. Pure luck. Gwennie and I had got out into the woods somehow, and it was clear they weren’t going to be able to help anybody else, so they grabbed us and ran. Whoever showed up after must have believed everyone had been killed, but Da kept an eye on the streams for a while just in case. That’s how he found out it was owned by KAG Laboratories. As far as we can tell KAG mostly did core R&D at that point, and sold the tech on.’
He shook his head again, frustrated. ‘Gwen and I searched, believe me, and so did Ari. There’s almost no information on the newstream archives, no corporate datastreams we could find, no one else we’ve ever heard of who came out of it. KAG didn’t have any gestation or crèche facilities, at least none that were registered. They were an old gemtech, they’d apparently been contracting for a long time, so it doesn’t really fit. Either they were starting to expand again – we’ve wondered if we might have been part of the first commercial batch – or they were running this place as a black lab, outside their normal operations and under the radar of the authorities. We don’t know, because the whole thing just disappeared.’
Callan frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. Whether it was sold or wound down or went bankrupt, there must be records.’
‘I know. But we couldn’t find any. When I realised that my genetype might be really important, I hacked every datastream I could. Drew a blank, so I asked Herran if he had any ideas, and he searched. And, well, you heard.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’<
br />
‘Rely on the genmed team here, I guess. Ari says I have to stop believing it’s all up to me. She thinks the more stressed I am the more likely I am to get ill. She might be right about that part.’ He popped the last morsel in his mouth, and wiped his fingers. ‘It’s just that the more engineered a genome is, the harder it is to understand what’s going on purely from sequencing it. You need the modification index, and the epigenetic directory, to see where all the molecular switches are and how they interact with each other. And for that you need the genetype.’
‘Blimey.’ Callan looked impressed. ‘You sound like an expert.’
‘I know a lot about genetic medicine now. It’s fascinating stuff.’ He hesitated a moment then said, ‘I’m thinking of studying it.’
‘What, properly? Formally?’
‘Yes. I already have all the qualifications I’d need, but I haven’t said it to too many people yet. I know gems aren’t supposed to want to do anything sort of … gemtech-y.’
‘I guess for a lot of people it feels distasteful,’ Callan acknowledged. ‘But medicine isn’t the same as modification, and anyway, we need to get over it. Otherwise all the expertise will stay with norms.’
‘So you think it’s a good idea?’
Callan grinned at him. ‘I think it’s a great idea. I would love to know that if I ever needed a genmed consultation you’d be the doctor on call.’
Rhys grinned back, bathed in warmth and a surge of unexpected happiness. His usual sense of being isolated, even in the midst of a crowd, even sometimes from Gwen, was burning away like mist off the river.
He felt well here, sitting in the sunshine in the middle of this huge, complicated, fascinating city, where every smell and sound and glance, every vibration under his feet or glimmer overhead was new enough to give the restless, questing part of his mind something to work on. And the other part of him, the part that cared nothing for the calculus of his environment, felt the pull of the man opposite, felt the flutter in his chest and the tug at the base of his belly; and he thought how easy it would be to fall, and in that moment he could think of no reasons not to.
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