It was an intriguing problem, and an important one, and he’d said yes almost before she had finished asking the question. He could already feel himself planning how he would go about tackling it: building a mental framework to parse the different elements of the puzzle, organising his lines of enquiry. He found that he was eager, almost impatient for the trip to the hospital to be over so he could get started. The realisation brought him up short as he pulled on a clean shirt.
That’s why you suggested me, isn’t it, Ari? Give the boy something to work on, something significant enough to really capture his attention, and maybe you can keep him healthy at the same time.
He raked his fingers through his short, tight, ruby-glowing curls and contemplated his reflection in the mirror.
Well, that’s fine with me. It could be the most useful thing anyone’s come up with yet. And this way, all that trawling through archives looking for things that weren’t there won’t have been a complete waste of time.
17
Less than a week had passed since Aryel Morningstar and Jeremy Temple declared themselves satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, but Herran had not wanted to wait any longer.
Eli found his enthusiasm – if that was what it could be called – profoundly strange, given what he now knew about the autistic gem’s previous life. He had expected Herran at least to insist that Aryel accompany them on the first day, and was surprised to find him perfectly sanguine about being escorted only by Callan and himself. They sat, three abreast in a Bel’Natur limousine, being conveyed in swift and silent luxury away from the Squats. He glanced over the fiery tangle of Herran’s curls to Callan’s taller profile, topped by his matching glow. Callan felt the gaze and returned it. The soft smile that had been playing on his lips shifted to something more sardonic.
‘Quite an upgrade.’ He whirled a languorous finger to indicate the compartment they occupied. ‘Wasn’t like this the last time I was aboard a Bel’Natur transport.’
Eli looked for any sign of a reaction from the driver, segregated behind his glass partition. There was none. He turned to the diminutive man who sat next to him.
‘How about you, Herran? Do you remember being driven around? When you worked for them before?’
‘Dark,’ said Herran promptly. He sat up straight, his entire upper body rotating as he made a 180-degree scan of the windows. The morning bustle of the city flashed past. He settled back against the plush upholstery. ‘Not so comfy.’
Callan chuckled. ‘Damn straight.’ He shifted, stretched out his legs.
‘They certainly seem to be making an effort.’ Eli replayed his conversations with Aryel, their speculation about the depth of the Bel’Natur transformation. It had been borne out so far by the alacrity with which the firm had acceded to every safeguard they had required for Herran, and the seniority of the staff who had been sent into the Squats to meet him and be scrutinised by his friends. On the one hand it might indicate just how much of a barrier the digital–neural transcription problem presented, and how many of their hopes were pinned on his being able to solve it. But if that were the only reason then the public announcement of the project – before securing his participation, let alone confirming his usefulness – was more than a little pre-emptive.
‘Bel’Natur,’ said Callan thoughtfully, ‘has never done things halfway. Not in my memory anyway, and Gaela and others who are older than me have said the same thing. I’ve heard stories about some of the other gemtechs, the corners they cut. Gempro was known for it, and you’ve heard Mik go on about Recombin. Bel’Natur prided themselves on being different. Whatever they decided to do, they made a total commitment.’
‘Same ethos, new objectives?’
‘Maybe.’
They were delivered to the main entrance, the driver out and opening the door for them before Eli could move. Heads turned as Herran hopped down after him, and passers-by stopped and stared as Callan emerged. He straightened up, rocking back on his heels a little as he took in the hard black glass that curved away from them. When he looked back down at Herran his smile was crooked.
‘Still sure about this?’
‘Sure.’ Herran was already trotting up the steps to the entrance. Eli took them two at a time and caught up with him.
‘Just remember,’ he said quietly. ‘If you change your mind, if you want to stop, get out, go home, just say so.’
‘Home later. Suppertime.’
‘Yes, but—’ Eli caught Callan’s tiny shake of the head, coupled with a grimace. He sighed and let it go. Aryel and Callan had both assured him that Herran knew what he was doing, and also knew he could stop doing it whenever he chose. And anyway, no one could read his cues as well as Callan.
Inside the black glass and white marble of the lobby, another surprise. Striding forward to meet them, Zavcka Klist.
‘Gentlemen, welcome.’ Her eyes met Eli’s. He was conscious that she had not greeted him by name, although, despite the fact that Bel’Natur had engineered both Herran and Callan into existence, he was the only one of the trio she had met before. The enmity that had been between them at their last encounter might be reason enough for that. But she was looking him straight in the face, frank and open, and he knew suddenly that the point was to give no appearance of prioritising her single norm visitor over the two gems.
But he was a half-stride ahead of them, Herran having halted abruptly in the face of her brash advance, and Callan stopping with him. Eli let momentum carry him forward. This was as good a time as any to see if they had taken on board what working with Herran was going to entail.
‘Ms Klist. It’s been a while.’
She shook his hand, the firm grip he remembered. ‘Dr Walker.’ A thin smile. As at their first meeting, it did not touch her eyes. ‘Thank you for agreeing to assist us.’ He sensed that she had bitten back the word finally, as she glanced past him to where Herran stood like a statue, head lowered and hands hanging like stones at his side. Callan, standing close alongside with his own hands thrust into his pockets, gave her a cool stare and looked pointedly past her to another woman who stood a couple of respectful paces back.
She came forward now, moving with the calm unfussiness they had taught her, flicking a look at Zavcka as she went past. She greeted Eli and Callan first, then stood in front of Herran, just out of reach and with her own arms quiet at her sides.
‘Hello, Herran. Are you well?’
A long pause. Herran peeked up, pale eyes glinting behind surprisingly long lashes. He nodded, rocking a little at the waist. ‘Sevi. Good.’
‘I …’ she glanced back at Zavcka. ‘My boss would like to meet you. Is that okay?’
Zavcka had gone still and quiet and watched keenly as Sevi Romero, senior neurolinguist, had taken point. Now she stepped forward as Sevi had done, her movements turned measured and slow, tone pitched low and reassuring. ‘Hello, Herran. I am Zavcka.’ Eli saw Callan register the given name and altered body language with the same twitch of surprise as himself. ‘Are you well?’
An even longer pause this time, the rocking more pronounced, but Herran’s eyes through his lashes steady on her face.
‘Zavcka,’ he said finally. ‘Herran. Well.’
‘Thank you for coming. We’re really looking forward to working with you.’ They watched each other for a moment longer. She straightened up just as Callan cleared his throat gently to signal Enough.
Her eyes lingered on Callan’s face too, as the final introduction was made; a face still beautiful, but no longer completely perfect. Callan kept his hands in his pockets and pinned her with that cool green stare. It was a look so knowing that Eli, had it been aimed at him, felt he would have had to take it on somehow, or else flee in embarrassment. Zavcka betrayed nothing but the same professionally polished politeness she had shown throughout.
*
She shepherded them swiftly through the registration of tablets and fingerprints. Eli could tell from the bewildered looks they got that the chief exe
cutive’s personal attention to such minutiae was not common practice.
But then neither, any more, was the sight of gems within the walls of a gemtech.
The word must have gone out, he decided, as an urbane young man who had materialised apparently out of thin air to assist now ushered them into a lift. There was no blatant staring. The girl on reception had smiled timidly at Callan, and not gawked at Herran. If comments were being made people were waiting until they were well out of earshot.
They stayed silent as they were whisked upwards, their awareness of Herran, facing into a corner with his back to them, a palpable thing. Callan leaned against the wall beside him in an elegant, protective slouch and Eli flanked Herran on the other side, feet apart and hands together in what felt uncomfortably like a sentry’s pose. He watched Callan and the assistant, Khan, size each other up. Khan looked away a moment later. What Eli could see of his face was tinged a delicate pink. Callan tipped his head back and gazed up at the mirrored ceiling, the wry smile twitching back onto his lips, the red shimmer of his hair the only blush about him.
Four floors of the tower had been given over to the new infotech division, but their first view of it was not impressive. A blank wall greeted them, unbroken save for the faint outline of a door and the identipad inset beside it. Eli glanced back into the empty lift before the doors slid closed, certain that the call buttons had already been fingerprint-sensitive.
‘Double screening,’ said Sevi, following the look. ‘In case someone who doesn’t have authorisation gets out alongside someone who does.’ She stepped up to the identipad, eyes and fingers aligned to the scanners as she spoke into the device. ‘Hold for group entry.’
They all shuffled forward, Herran up on tiptoe to get his face high enough. Eli went last, and felt his tablet thrum faintly as its signal was scanned and accepted in tandem with his own. The door slid open.
What greeted them on the other side was not what he’d expected.
They stood in a well-lit, casually disorderly lobby area, surrounded by scattered clumps of low, comfortable-looking furniture. He could feel the dead air of a damper field, located there no doubt to minimise the disturbance of people coming and going from the floor as much as to provide a place for private conversation. Beyond it, rows of screens and workstations radiated away in every direction, manned by what he immediately thought of as a motley crew of technicians. A few looked to be his age; most were younger, and none older. Although there was an air of intense busyness about the place it nevertheless felt informal, in a way that Eli recognised from his own university days. It was far removed from his memories of typical gemtech ambience.
‘No white coats,’ Callan murmured. Zavcka looked over at him.
‘No. Some of the work requires clean rooms and suits, but apart from that we thought it would be better if it didn’t feel like a traditional lab.’
Eli kept his eyes on Herran, who had walked without hesitation out of the damper field and made straight for the nearest empty workstation, which had an overlarge monitor and integrated input screen. A couple of people working beyond it looked up, startled. They took in Herran’s hair and scarred face, the taller, similarly flame-haired figure of Callan in the background and Sevi shaking her head at them with a finger to her lips, and went back to their own work, although they continued to cast interested glances in Herran’s direction. He stood stock still in front of the screen, ignoring them all as he scanned the feed.
‘Is that a recent decision?’ asked Eli, still watching him. In his peripheral vision he saw the two women exchange glances.
‘Yes,’ Zavcka said. ‘Some of the researchers did wear them, although there was no real reason for it. Force of habit. But,’ her eyes flicked between Herran and Callan, ‘we didn’t want you to feel like you were back in the old Bel’Natur.’ Behind her Khan smiled a little. Eli felt certain that this touch had been his idea.
‘I see.’ Callan’s tone was flat.
Eli jumped into a stretching silence. ‘I was surprised you’d located the project here.’
‘Yeah.’ Callan, not looking around, frowning a little as he regarded Herran. ‘Labs and dorms used to be way out in the sticks.’
Zavcka stepped in beside him, so that they stood companionably side by side just within the damper field, watching the small gem. Herran had pulled his own tablet out and was doing something with it, without taking his eyes off the main screen.
‘The agricultural divisions still are, of course,’ she said. ‘There were pragmatic reasons for locating this project at headquarters – we have a lot more empty space here now and the location is convenient. But I am also determined to ensure that we – the administrative staff, the executives – never again allow ourselves to become divorced from what it is that we actually do.’
She turned her head, speaking quietly now to Callan’s profile. ‘I understand how hard it must have been for you – both of you – to decide to come here. I know that as far as you’re concerned we are on probation. I know that we are not likely ever to be forgiven. I get it. I can’t change the past, Callan.’
He looked back at her, arms folded across his chest, eyes like hard green stones. Eli wondered if she was going to finish the speech with I can only try for a better future or some similar platitude, and whether Callan could contain himself if she did.
Instead he dropped his arms and strode away from her and out into the room, his attention back on Herran. Eli moved instinctively after him, and felt the others follow. Callan’s voice was low and steady as he left the noise suppression of the damper field behind, but it carried the hint of a huskiness that Eli recognised. ‘Hey, Herr. So. What d’you think?’
‘Okay. Not bad.’ Eli realised that the feed scrolling across the monitor had changed subtly while Herran had been standing there. ‘Mostly not stupid.’
Sevi’s jaw dropped. Callan looked over at her. ‘That might not sound like a compliment, but it is.’
‘Um. Herran.’ Sevi was visibly working out how to structure what she wanted to say. Eli turned around, caught Khan throwing his boss a worried glance and Zavcka Klist opening her mouth to speak. He was almost relieved to see a flash of the old, peremptory arrogance in the crease between her brows, the flare of her nostrils and the tilt of her head.
Eli held her gaze and shook his head deliberately. He mouthed, No.
‘But—’ Khan started, eyes darting between them.
Eli spoke quietly and evenly, conscious of the audience of staff now obviously paying attention to them and the need both to explain and to reassert the ground rules. ‘This is what it means to work with Herran. Looking at your systems to him is like looking around this room for the rest of us. It’s how he orients himself, how he knows where he is. He’s not going to do any harm.’
Zavcka’s jaw tightened. Her eyes bored into him. Beside her Khan fidgeted, but neither spoke. Behind him Eli could hear Sevi, with help from Callan, get a monosyllabic version of the same reassurance from Herran. He turned around.
‘All set?’
‘Set.’ Herran’s small fingers slid across the workstation input. His other hand clutched his own tablet to his chest. ‘Put back. Quick quick. See?’ The feed now looked as it had when they first entered, although Eli would have been hard pressed to describe exactly what the difference had been. Herran looked up at him, face as devoid of expression as ever, pale eyes innocently blinking.
Callan’s tightly controlled anger of a few minutes ago appeared to have been replaced by a coiled, toxic amusement. He looked over Herran’s head at Zavcka.
‘We can continue,’ he said, ‘if you’d like.’ Although his voice was measured and calm there was a whiplash edge to it now that reminded Eli of Aryel.
*
She took them through the ranks of programmers and past the prototyping rooms, pausing here and there for explanations and to let them meet key personnel. It had been made clear that a mass introduction would be counterproductive as far as Herran was concern
ed, and not particularly useful for anyone else. But there seemed a determination to display every element of the project, and to ensure that everyone who was a part of it was subjected to the visitors’ scrutiny. Eli remembered Mikal’s comment about transparency, and the way he too appeared to have been welcomed into the organisation.
He decided they must really be serious when she let the technician who was leading on development of the cranial interface explain exactly how they thought it could work. He lingered over the mockups they had been shown, feeling a little sick, and sensed Zavcka pause beside him.
‘You’re using what you learned from Gabriel.’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes met his for a moment, before they slid away to rest on the delicate headbands arrayed on the bench. She spoke as if to the equipment. ‘We still don’t understand – I don’t think anyone does, even now – his ability to experience the thoughts of others. Some kind of synaptic hypersensitivity, although how that’s not completely overwhelmed by background radiation … Anyway.’ She shook her head. ‘He showed us it was possible. If you boost the signal and damp down the interference, thoughts are transmissible. The problem is understanding them.’
‘That hasn’t been his problem.’
‘No. Quite the opposite. Poor child.’ She stepped briskly away from the workbench. ‘Fortunately, deactivating the interface at will has proved to be fairly simple for us. I imagine he must wish for a similar switch for his own ability.’
‘I imagine he must.’ He did not try to keep the acid out of his voice.
She strode ahead without responding. Callan looked back and raised a questioning eyebrow. Eli scowled at him and shook his head.
They ended in Sevi’s lab, a light, open space that bore little resemblance to the testing chambers of old. It was full of neurolinguists and psychologists eager to meet Herran. Eli watched keenly as Sevi showed him the ergonomically padded, articulated chairs, with their sensor arrays draped like gossamer diadems over the high backs.
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