Misfortune turned to Upton. “I’ll leave you to do yourself, if you’ve got the nerve.”
Instead, he turned, pounding on the van doors.
Misfortune looked straight into the camera. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want this in the Haystack.”
Crane straightened his hat and tie. “I understand. Is there anything you—”
“Just get out. All of you.”
The sapps could have stayed, of course, could have pretended to respect her wishes. But what was the point? Their HawkBOTs launched, hovering and watching, from the outside, as the vehicle rolled into distortion, as anyspace energy surged over the desert floor and then burst, like a hose of water, arcing back toward the Desert Valley outpost.
Halfway there, it steamed into nothing with a sound that was, strangely and unsettlingly, very much like a scream.
CHAPTER 58
NONINTERFERENCE ZONE, SOL STAR SYSTEM
MARS GENERAL HOSPITAL, ADULT AUGMENTATION WARD
Frankie surfaced in what was indisputably a hospital room, under the weight of a blanket in what was just as indisputably Martian gravity. She even recognized the hospital by its smell: a mix of mushroom, dust scrubbers, and disinfectant that evoked memories of her implant surgery. She remembered waiting with Jermaine for Hung to wake up after his augments went in.
Jermaine. She tried to sit.
Nothing happened.
“Relax—there’s nobody to fight here.”
She cracked her eyes. Maud was on a chair beside her. She had a grip on Frankie’s hand and was gently rolling her fingers. Easing them out of a fist. Her primer was configged to a variation on an old Japanese imperial navy uniform.
“Is that meant to imply you outrank me?” Frankie said. Her words came out mushy … there was a misting tube clipped inside her cheek, keeping her mouth and throat from drying out. She ran a finger over it, reassuring herself that at least her arms and hands were following orders.
They were, barely. With her implant fragged, her nimbleness was gone. Every movement felt clumsy, as if she were drunk.
“It’s what I wanted to wear.” Maud bent over Frankie and gave her a slow, ludicrously gentle kiss.
“I can’t move my legs,” Frankie said. She could feel the tightness in her voice.
“Don’t panic just yet. They’re working on it.”
“Sensorium link’s down too.”
Maud nodded. “That’s definitely temporary. Doctors are on it.”
“Is one of them Jerm?” She licked her lips.
Maud shook her head.
“Did … did his data make it?”
“He decohered on the first attempt to EMbody. Traumatic death, traumatic upload. Not good. But Jermaine2 seems to be holding for now.”
They let that sit between them for a minute.
“He’s on leave,” Maud added. “He and Ember are doing integration therapy. Getting used to the new reality.”
“I suppose that means having lots of sex with his Mayfly™ body?”
“Feel free to ask them for footage. Now you’re awake, they’ll fold us in. Lots and lots of counseling and bonding exercises for … what was it Hung used to say? The whole fam damly.”
“Getting used to the new reality, whatever that may be.” Frankie tried to shake the cobwebs. She fumbled the misting tube out of her cheek. “On leave.”
“It means not working,” Maud said. “I can try to find an explanation online if you’re unclear.”
Frankie swallowed. Maud seemed remarkably serene, but she couldn’t tell … Had she just disconnected from all of this so thoroughly that she didn’t care anymore? Was this going to be glad you’re awake, goodbye forever?
Could I blame her if it was?
She was too afraid to ask.
“I guess if we’re not working, I shouldn’t inquire about who ended up with the passkeys for the solar system.”
Maud hit the bed controls, raising her up to sitting, so they were in more of an eye-to-eye position. “The sale to the Punama is emphatically not a go. The Kinze don’t appear to have the right to sell the Solakinder to anyone else. And the Yump switched teams. Instead of remaining a mediator—apparently they like you too much to be neutral anymore—”
“I am incredibly likeable.”
“—they’ve been actively advocating for us. Or maybe … filing a co-grievance? You’d need Mama Rubi to explain the legal nuances. If you were working.”
“Which I am not?”
Slight smile. “Now you’re getting it.”
“Is there an upshot?”
“Nobody’s sure. Noninterference treaty’s exceedingly busted, and there are forty ships in-system. The offworlders called for a new independent auditor. How much wealth we may yet owe the Kinze is something everyone’s still trying to figure out.”
“But it’s not the whole solar system?”
Maud shook her head. “Not by a long shot.”
“And Ember?”
“Not being embargoed. They can’t quite prove he was set up from the get-go. He’s been given oodles of IP by the Yump, so he’s forbidden from working on Bootstrap Projects. And nobody can agree on whether we even have to invent all the #supertechs ourselves. There’s been definite cultural interference, after all.”
Frankie let herself feel that moment of burning outrage on Ember’s behalf, testing internally to see if it was enough fuel to get her out of bed and launch a new search for evidence.
“Relax,” Maud said. “He and Babs2 are rolling in fun science. They got permission to audit the IMperish Foundation to see how they EMbodied Headmistress into the Irma du Toit body. It’s spawned a project they call #WhyAreConsciousness?”
“And.” Frankie forced herself to ask. “You and me?”
Maud hitched herself over the edge of the hospital bed, climbing in beside her, winding their hands together. She pressed her forehead against Frankie’s, locking gazes. Smiled.
Tears sprang to Frankie’s eyes.
“We’ll be busy putting Humpty back together again for awhile,” Maud said.
“Not.” Throat tight. “Divorcing, then?”
“If you want to push me away, Frankie, you’re going to have to work far harder at it. Setting off a bomb at the base of your spine—”
“I thought that had some potential.”
“Call me clingy,” Maud said, leaning in to kiss her.
“Anyway, who went chasing Misfortune Murderpants Wilson and Glenn Upton down an endless cave maze?”
“I love you, my darling, so much, so much—”
“—but shut my fucking hole?”
“And now we’re back on brand.”
All was forgiven. For a second, just one, that almost felt worse than being rejected.
No, Frankie decided. Not worse. Just unfamiliar. Unsettling. Contrary to the way she’d assumed the world would always, always work.
I’m the one everyone leaves, she thought. Just to test the feels.
That lifelong certainty somehow didn’t seem true anymore.
The surge of relief brought exhaustion with it, thick swells of tiredness, but for once, she wasn’t frightened.
“I feel very much,” she said, fighting a yawn, “as though I do not deserve you.”
“I thought deserve was a brutal lie,” Maud said.
“I’m open to changing”—now she did yawn—“my opinion.”
“I’ll look forward to hearing all about it when you wake up.”
Frankie was under before she could answer.
When she woke, her implants were on again, running in safe mode. Maud was curled against her, hands loosely interlinked, dozing.
“Don’t go making a saint of her, pal.” A familiar voice with a vintage US accent whispered in Frankie’s ear.
“Babs?”
“Most of me, anyway. We all made it, more or less. Who’d have thought?”
Who indeed? “I imagine my therapist would be gratified if I started to blub here.”
“You don’t look very blubby to me.”
Maud’s eyes fluttered. She yawned, stretched, and gave out with a smile like dawn rising. “Would you like to go for a ride?”
“I would, very much,” Frankie said.
Maud unhooked a bar from the ceiling. Working together, they helped Frankie pull herself up to sitting and then maneuvered her, inert legs first, into a wheelchair.
“Okay?” Maud asked.
“Everything’s still attached, but…” Frankie remembered that feeling, not so long before, of imagining the whole of her lower body would just twist off. “A little scared, maybe.”
“Give it time.” Maud took her hand and Frankie piloted the chair, wheeling out past the treatment rooms and into a lounge overlooking the bizarre experiment that was the Martian sheep farm. Ember and Jermaine2 were waiting by windows overlooking a vast, red, utterly artificial pasture.
Jermaine2—tall, unblemished, smiling at her in his Mayfly™ body …
… as if nothing at all had happened …
… beamed at her from in front of a view of sheep grazing on speed-grown grass under a fungiplex dome.
Babs2 and Crane tooned in as everyone converged on Frankie’s chair, the sapps standing by as everyone else, even Maud, wrapped up into one big warm mammalian hug.
When Frankie got her nose clear, she said, “I never really believed in ‘happily ever after.’”
“You always were more the ‘waiting for it all to fall apart’ type,” Ember agreed.
“My love,” Maud said, “you’re going to have to start learning to take real risks.”
“That so?”
“Absolutely,” Jermaine2 said. “Realtime, hardcore leap-of-faith stuff.”
“Trusting people,” Ember added. “Leaning in and not out.”
With that, Maud rolled the chair up to the nanoglass. Jermaine2 took Frankie’s free hand; Ember put an arm around him.
Together, the pack looked out at the Martian city, the herd of sheep, the view of the stations. And, hanging above them in the zenith of the sky, the portal back to Earth, glimmering anyspace, a distorted sickle in the sky marking the route back to their homeworld.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Dealbreaker was written on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which I have the good fortune to stand and create.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE SURFACE—TORONTO, 2020
I didn’t expect, when I finished Gamechanger, that a sequel would take me so far from the Earthbound people of that first book. Maybe I should have foreseen my Bounceback generation’s children expanding into the solar system as soon as I decided this book was Frankie’s story. I hope you enjoyed traveling with her.
My own universe is expanded, always and daily, by my wife, Kelly Robson, who challenges and delights me with every breath, and has made life a full-on adventure, rather than an existence. (One without spaceship crashes, thankfully!)
Dealbreaker would not exist without the critical support and advice of my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, and Tor editor Christopher Morgan, both of whom have used their keen eyes, excellent judgment, and the occasional deadline to fuel my rocketpack.
Countless family members and superheroes keep me from flying into cliffs, and patch me up when I hit. I’m looking at you: Charlie Jane Anders, Titus Androgynous, Madeline Ashby, Michael Bishop, Jeremy Brett, Linda Carson, Ellen Datlow, Lara Donnelly, Gemma Files, Claude Lalumière, Margo MacDonald, Annalee Newitz, David Nickle, Jessica Reisman, Alexandra Renwick, Julia Rios, Jordan Sharpe, Richard Shealy, Rebecca Stefoff, all of my lovely Stubborns, Caitlin Sweet, Kellan Szpara, Harry Turtledove, Peter Watts, Laura White, Jay Wolf, and Neon Yang. It would be an honor to count any of you as enemies; how much luckier I am to be able to call you my arch-friends!
You are my network; may our portals maintain their sweet harmony!
ALSO BY L. X. BECKETT
Gamechanger
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L. X. BECKETT frittered away their misbegotten youth working as an actor and theater technician in Southern Alberta, before deciding to make a shift into writing science fiction. Their first novella, Freezing Rain, a Chance of Falling, was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2018 and takes place in the same universe as Gamechanger and Dealbreaker. Lex identifies as feminist, lesbian, genderqueer, married, and Slytherin, and can be found on Twitter or at a writing advice blog, The LexIcon, at lxbeckett.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part 1: Trust Exercises
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9. The Surface
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part 2: Mirror Games
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Part 3: Intimacy Coaching
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Land Acknowledgment
Acknowledgments
Also by L. X. Beckett
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEALBREAKER
Copyright © 2020 by A. M. Dellamonica
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Stephan Martiniere
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-16529-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-16527-5 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250165275
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First Edition: 2021
Dealbreaker Page 47