Regeneration
Page 8
“I am checking and I am asking. In the meantime, you two go and wash your hands.” She tilted Sural’s face up to rub at a smear of egg on his cheek. “And faces.”
“Mom—”
“And brush your teeth, and don’t soak yourselves. Or the bathroom.”
“Mom—”
“Right now, please.”
There was that particular tone to their mother’s voice that said further nagging would be fruitless; might indeed prove severely counterproductive. Both boys knew it well. They beat a tactical retreat. Mikal just could hear them over the sound of running water, soberly discussing the encounter and judging it a win.
“I feel outnumbered,” he said to his wife.
“There’s only two of them. And they’re tiny.”
“They’re gaining on us.”
Sharon chortled. “I reckon we can stay in front for a few more years.” The tablet pinged and she looked at the screen. “Right—Gaela says they’re planning to get there once the ceremony is over so they don’t have to contend with the crowd of journalists. Sounds like Eve is giving them a hard time too.”
“No news there.”
“She’s a good kid, Mik. Mostly. Willful as hell, but then—” She gestured in the direction of their own children.
Mikal looked rueful. “They aren’t a gang anyone could’ve predicted, are they? Not that I’m complaining. Endless wrangles with small children is the perfect training for a life in politics.”
“Endless wrangles and the occasional ultimatum,” Sharon said quietly, poking her head into the hall to make sure the boys were out of earshot. “Anything new since last night?”
“A chatty message from Rob Trench saying he’s going to be there with his good friend the energy minister, who, he hastens to remind me, has always been a big gem-rights advocate, is delighted by the rapid progress of Thames Tidal, is looking forward to everything, and so on and so forth. Alongside a message from the office that Standard BioSolutions want to schedule a follow-up meeting. Naturally it doesn’t mention what they want to follow up on.”
Sharon snorted. “They have some nerve. A disclosure order was served on one of their divisions two days ago—rumor is they might have acquired a high-power submersible at some point.”
“Really? Good. I can use that to politely decline until the investigation’s over. Anything else pointing their way?”
“Nothing useful. The whole damn thing’s pretty much stalled. I got the internal audit yesterday and as Pilan predicted, no one inside the company looks like they could have had anything to do with it either.”
“That was never likely. They’re a tight group, which is part of why the rest of the industry has such a problem with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bankside sends someone along to poke around today, though with any luck they’ll keep a low profile. So anyway, there’s Standard, there’s Rob, and Pilan wants to have a word with me, though I already knew that.” He looked resigned as he started gathering up tablets and jackets and the various accoutrements necessary for venturing forth with offspring in tow.
“You’ll have to give him an answer eventually, honey.”
“I’d rather convince him it’s a bad idea than refuse to be involved. It would be misguided if I did join; it might be disastrous if I don’t and they go ahead anyway.”
“You do know that keeping people from making their own mistakes isn’t your responsibility, right?”
“I know, but I have to try.” He poked his head around the corner, shouted, “Boys! Time to go!” and turned back to her with a grimace. “I suspect this morning is not going to be quite as boring as I’d like. Although I’m sure Mish would disagree.”
A few streets away, in the apartment above the café, Eve was equally desperate to go. “Why do we always have to be late for things?”
“We’re never late,” Bal pointed out peaceably. “We get where we’re going exactly when we mean to.”
“But it’s never when everyone else gets there.” She appealed to Aryel, who was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, nursing a cup of coffee. “Aunty Aryel, tell them.”
“Tell them what, Eve?”
“That we need to go now!”
Aryel shook her head. “Now would be too early, sweetie.”
Eve looked angry enough to indulge in a bit of foot-stamping—until she caught her mother’s eye and thought better of it. Gaela swiped to send the message she’d been tapping out. “Mikal and Sharon are going to be at the opening and I’ve just arranged to meet up with them afterward. So that’s fine. You wouldn’t be able to play with the boys until the ceremony’s over anyway.”
Eve did not appear mollified. “Mish and Suri always get to be on things.”
“What sorts of things?” asked Eli, from the depths of an armchair.
“Streams.”
She apparently felt further explanation was necessary, given the silence that followed. “Uncle Mikal and Aunty Sharon always take them to things where Uncle Mikal has to make a speech or sometimes Aunty Sharon does, and the people put it on the streams and sometimes they talk to them after and put that on the streams too, and Mish and Suri are always there even though they’re usually not talking ’cause Uncle Mikal and Aunty Sharon say to be quiet but one time one of the stream people asked Mish a question, and he answered it. And it was on the streams.”
It came out in a rush, with barely any punctuation or pause. She stopped for breath and looked around at the adults with an expression that said matters had been made so clear that they could not now fail to take action.
The adults exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably.
“Do you really want to be on the streams, Evie?” Aryel asked finally, “or is it just that you don’t want Misha and Sural to do things without you?”
Eve’s brow furrowed, as she tried to work that one out.
“In other words,” Gaela said, “if Mish and Suri had never ever been on any streams, would you still want to be on them yourself?” She could feel the tension in the room as they waited for an answer, although Eve didn’t appear to notice.
She shrugged hugely, as though this was too implausible a scenario to be worth considering. “I just want to go.”
“Right.” There was a note of finality in Bal’s voice. “We all do, and we’ll head down in about an hour.” Gaela nodded and he added, “In the meantime, do you have schoolwork, Eve?”
“No.” She was pouting. “I finished it.”
“Well then—”
“Can I go out in the garden?”
“Yes,” her parents replied in unison, and Gaela added, “Put on your sweater. No”—as Eve turned to go up to her bedroom—“this one.”
She handed over the freshly laundered white sweater with its UV-reflective finish. Eve took it and stomped downstairs, far too loudly. The door banged. Gaela looked out of the window and waved. Eve looked up at her, turned away without waving back, then glanced swiftly back over her shoulder at her mother and waggled her fingers half-heartedly. Unmitigated rudeness was presumably a step too far, even for her.
Gaela turned back to the others, feeling mildly relieved.
“Sorry,” Aryel said. She sounded troubled. “I could’ve just messaged you, but even though Herran’s got me covered with the heaviest encryption there is . . .”
“I think we’re all happier if some things aren’t trusted to the streams.” Bal refilled her cup. “And don’t apologize. Eve’s going through a strange stage at the moment.” He returned the pot to the hob. “At least, I hope it’s just a moment.”
“I haven’t seen her in a while—too long. After yesterday I wanted to catch up in person.”
Gaela swallowed past the constriction in her throat. “So, catch us up. Although going there was beyond the call of duty, I think.”
Bal came to sit beside her by the window, glancing out himself as he did so, then wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders. “How was she? Not happy to see you, I’ll bet.”
“So she’s having to deal with being the same as everybody else. It’s about time.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. She still sees herself as different. Better. Distinct from the rabble.”
“Which she is,” Eli said. “Different, I mean, and by a number of objective measures, whether we like it or not. And now that wealth and status don’t elevate her anymore, what will she turn to?”
Bal’s jaw tightened. Gaela said, “You think she’s going to be . . . looking for something?”
“I think she’ll need to,” Aryel replied. “She said she was planning to go home, ignore the world, and wait out her sentence. I didn’t believe it for a minute, and apparently the psych reports don’t suggest that either. I gather they’re troubling, but not definitive enough to keep her in high security.”
“What do we need to do?” Gaela could feel a buzzing behind her eyes; the stress would lead to a headache if she wasn’t careful. She took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, and leaned into Bal’s solid bulk. “Aryel, you need to tell us: should we leave again?” She felt Bal tense up.
“Absolutely not.” Aryel’s response was reassuringly firm. “She’ll still be confined for many years, and I doubt she’d stroll around the Squats even if she could. You don’t need to do anything other than continue to keep a low profile. You and your children, along with Rhys and Callan and a few others, are among the topics redacted from her stream access, but she doesn’t have a list of what’s forbidden. She knows it’ll include victims and their families, and the trial established Gabriel as one of those victims, so even if she notices a Gaela-, Bal- and Gabriel-shaped hole, she won’t put it down to anything more than that. Public figures like Mikal and Sharon can’t be redacted, though, so you’re right to keep Eve away from Misha and Sural when they’re in the spotlight.”
She ruffled her wings slightly and walked over to look down at the garden. “I’m not saying she won’t use whatever means are at her disposal to search. She’s already tried, even though she knows it’s pointless—she’ll never be allowed to reclaim the child Ellyn carried. I think she’s had enough of feeling frustrated. My suspicion is that she’ll focus her energies on something that gives her some gratification.” She turned away from the window. “And maybe lets her believe that one day she’ll be able to try again.”
“How?” Bal had relaxed a little as Aryel was speaking, but his voice was still tight around the question. “She won’t be able to deceive her way back into the kind of position she had before. Mind you, she’s got a bunch of followers waiting for a leader—think she’ll try to hook up with them?”
“I’m not sure. I pressed her on it, but it didn’t sound like she takes the Klist Cult seriously. I know”—as Eli looked skeptical—“she’s perfectly capable of hiding them in her pocket while pretending they’re beneath her notice, and I did get the impression she’d thought about them more than she was willing to let on. She changed the subject, which is odd for someone so narcissistic.” She perched again, this time on the arm of Eli’s chair. “There was also the fact that, apart from a couple of snide remarks, she didn’t want to talk about Bel’Natur—she didn’t try to get any information out of me, although she’d ranted about not being allowed to engage in business. That surprised me.”
“You think she’s going to try and find a way back in?”
“I’ll bet she’s already working on it.”
“So she’s not concerned anymore with—?” Gaela looked toward the window. She could not bring herself to say her daughter’s name.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” Aryel looked down at her hands resting on her knee, as though an answer she preferred might be found there. “The fact is, she’s desperate to know. Desperate. It was the only thing she genuinely seemed to care about. Remember, she doesn’t see herself as the villain in this—as far as she’s concerned, we’re the ones—no, I am the one who’s done her wrong.” She gazed around the room, catching everyone’s eye in turn. “But even that’s not straightforward, because in addition to everything else, I do think she is horribly, horribly lonely, though I suspect she’d rather die than admit it, even to herself. But although she was hostile and the conversation was fraught, although I know she reckons me an enemy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my going out there meant something to her. I think it gave her a sense of connection, talking to someone who has the measure of her. Someone she can match wits with.”
“Someone with whom,” Eli said quietly, “she has so much in common.”
“She’d sooner give up her fortune than admit that.” Aryel sighed and stretched. “And I’m not crazy about the comparison myself. But yes.”
Eve cast a swift glance up at the window. Aunty Aryel had only stood there for a moment and she was gone now, but Eve could see the flame-red and indigo shimmers of her parents’ heads, side by side on the little couch where Mama often sat to read. You always had to assume Mama was about to turn her head and scan the garden, and take precautions accordingly.
Eve had no idea why her mother checked on her so much, even when they were at home. It was like she thought Eve might disappear if she wasn’t looking. She was sure Aunty Sharon didn’t watch Mish and Suri that hard when they were in their own house.
She hunkered down in her little cave under the shrubs, holding her battered tablet so it was covered by her sweater. She was fairly sure Mama couldn’t see it, not as long as she held it like this. Not that there was anything wrong with having it out here, or anywhere else, as long as she was using it in the approved manner. She was restricted to the children’s newstreams, so that meant stories and games and puzzles; and schoolwork, articles, and vids on the school’s firewalled pupil network, where she was also allowed to have streamchats with Mish and some of their classmates. Apart from that she was not allowed to post anything, or set up a profile, or have any onstream life at all. Many of her friends could do what they liked and she resented being excluded.
So when one of the older girls who’d left school last term sent her an invitation, a link to a private stream where the cool, clever kids could talk to each other without their parents butting in or harassing them, she’d jumped at the chance. She did wonder for a moment why Dorah’s account was still active even though she’d gone to a different school, and why she hadn’t said anything before she left. But by the time the explanation came back—that accounts were left open for a short time so that good-byes could be exchanged, and that Dorah had really liked Eve, but had been too much in awe of her to reach out before—she no longer cared; the new socialstream was full of the kind of sarcastic, self-regarding chatter that she didn’t normally encounter, nor was allowed to indulge in. Eve knew full well that even if she wasn’t breaking the rules by being onstream there in the first place, her new stream-friends were not the kind of kids her parents would approve of.
They thought so too, and had given her lots of tips for avoiding attention.
Other than Dorah, now known as @dorok235, Eve had no idea who any of them were in real life, but that part didn’t much matter: everyone was anonymous here. She’d gotten a real thrill out of coming up with her very first alphanumeric handle, and felt grown-up and important every time she ventured onstream under her new secret identity. And she wasn’t an idiot, everyone knew how essential it was to keep that secret; everyone
knew stream-friends weren’t the same as real friends, and that even on children’s streams you could never be sure that someone was telling the truth about who they were and that you must never ever say who you really were, nor where you were. Her secret friends might live across the street or on the other side of the planet, for all she knew. She didn’t know their real names and except for Dorah, they didn’t know hers.
But @dorok235 and a couple of the others were always there for her when she was angry or upset, and it always made her feel better when they told her how special she was, and how much they hoped to meet and become real friends one day. They got excited whenever she let slip the tiniest thing: that she was adopted, that she was blond, that she was eight, that her parents never let her out of their sight. Her stream-friends asked lots of questions about that, agreeing that it was bitterly unfair, and Eve’s sense of injustice swelled.
She didn’t think it was at all surprising that they found her so interesting: they told her all the time how clever and important she was.
8
The festivities were well under way by the time Aryel Morningstar swept in, folded her wings and touched down on the quayside in front of Thames Tidal Power, landing between the stage and the airlock through which visitors were being escorted for tours of the power plant’s control room. The dignitaries had not long concluded their speeches, and the press corps, only just beginning to disperse, all swarmed back to cover her arrival, angling vidcams to catch her falling gracefully out of the sky, then rushing forward, microphones ready to capture whatever pithy comment she might have for them today.
Agwé, recording the proceedings from a vantage point near the Child’s Play tent, shook her head in admiration. “Sink me, she’s good—late enough not to interrupt, early enough to get lots of attention, casual enough for them all to feel it was pure luck they were still around when she got here.” She glanced down at Gabriel from her perch on the stepladder that enabled her to see over the heads of the crowd. “She plans it all down to the last detail, doesn’t she?”