She knew the answer to that one, of course: they would have realized it when Zavcka Klist, major shareholder and chief executive par excellence, was hauled off to jail, the reputation of the company she had led once more in tatters, its only hope of salvation to make good on her false promise of reform and throw itself on the mercy of the Morningstar.
Zavcka mused on how well that strategy had worked, and considered how she might turn it to her advantage, barely seeing the Thames Tidal streamfeed scroll by until a thumbnail of Aryel fluttering down into a crowd on a quayside caught her attention.
You, again? She tapped it up, and watched clips of a bullish gillung man and a slender, pregnant woman looking self-consciously pleased as they were complimented by some politician or other; Mikal Varsi propping himself amusingly against a much-too-short lectern while he said something funny and true about the Thames always having been the source of the city’s power; Sharon Varsi—with superintendent’s bars on her shoulder—chuckling along with the rest and holding firmly onto the hands of two small, bored-looking boys; Aryel sweeping low over the water and into a graceful landing, close-up on the blue eyes and the smile and the crush of the press around her; here was a norm man with a delighted expression being helped out of a divesuit, and there two young women strolling through the crowd with their arms around each other; now a crowd of raucous children pelting back and forth between a large, low pool of water and a table full of whizzing, fizzing toys; everywhere were laughing faces and sunshine on water, a carnival atmosphere, a sense of—
Zavcka’s heart caught in her chest. She felt it spasm, like a missed beat or a last chance . . . or a lost life.
She stabbed at the screen so hard that she would not have been surprised if it, or her hand, had shivered into a thousand pieces. She would hardly have cared. The vid rolled back under her scrambling fingers: and there on the screen, a child with tangled blond curls, dark, clever eyes and a lively, laughing face spun away from the pool, shouting gleefully at two other children, some pale-blue jelly-like thing clutched in her fist. She ran across to the table and shoved the jelly-thing into the base of a dormant toy. It fizzed and whizzed and threw purple sparks in the air. The little girl was jumping up and down in her excitement.
Zavcka froze the picture, froze the moment; was herself frozen in the moment as she stared at the leaping child. The child who was her. Herself at eight. In a place she had never been, with friends she had never had, in a time when she had never been a child.
She was never sure afterward how long she’d sat and stared, a stone woman and a graven image. The tablet’s timer suggested no more than a few seconds. But she had spent them elsewhere, in the universe between heartbeats, a silent, stretched-out place where eons are reckoned differently. All of the years of her long, long life slipped by her in that space, and more of them, and more.
Then she moved, and when she moved she felt a rushing like a great wave, like a river roaring down, like the tide coming in, filling her with the speed and decision and power of the old self she remembered. She felt the heat and the cold and the fear and the joy of it, like worlds ending and beginning, and she moved like a new self she had never known.
When Crawford returned a few minutes later, as time is reckoned in this place, he found her standing at the window, hands clasped behind her back, gazing sorrowfully into the evening as it rapidly drew in. The tablet screen on her console was blank; it might not have been touched since he’d left the room. She knew that she looked lonely, and a little sad; needy, and vulnerable. Inside she felt light, as though some nameless thing that had filled her up and weighed her down had been jettisoned in that other place. In its absence there was a clarity that sought out and filled up every gap and crack and hollow. She stared into it, unflinching, and gathered the shadows around her on the outside.
Crawford launched into another round of apologies for how long his call had taken, spiced with the innuendo of one who knows better than to blame others directly, but is well-practiced in the art of deflection. Zavcka, listening with the acuity that had replaced her annoyance, detected a note of genuine unease: things elsewhere were not as they should be, and he was distracted and resentful. Good. It would make him that much more malleable. They were playing charades for real now, though he did not know it. She readied herself for confirmation, and the forging of new tools.
“You must find it very difficult,” she interjected when he paused to draw breath, “to focus on other matters instead of the thing that concerns you most. I know I do.” She gestured a weary dismissal: of the work they had been doing, the conversations that had called him away, the world itself perhaps. The gesture said, We both know this is trivial and that we are merely passing time.
“Madam?”
But she had turned away and was looking out the window again. A gust of wind blew another thousand leaves from the trees and she shivered as though the chill of it had rippled through her too.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” Crawford said hesitantly, “but are you all right?”
She let a few seconds drip down before she answered, sadly, “I’m thinking of my little girl, out there somewhere. It’s cold this evening. I hope she’s warm enough. I worry about her so much. Do you have children, Mr. Crawford?”
“I . . . ah . . . No, madam, I don’t.”
“That’s a pity. I left it so late.” Zavcka shook her head, staring at the window as if into the darkness falling outside, watching his reflection keenly in the glass. “I know you can’t tell me very much, but—Do you think she’s warm enough?” She injected a catch in her voice.
“I’m certain she is, madam. We believe she’s well cared for.”
Almost exactly the words Aryel had used. I need more, Crawford. I need to be sure the child I saw is the one you’ve identified. I’m almost certain, but almost isn’t enough.
“I envy you, knowing that. What I wouldn’t give for just a glimpse of her. It’s so difficult to believe in anything when you can’t see it for yourself.” She bowed her head, tightening her jaw as though fighting back a greater emotion. “I’m not blaming you, Mr. Crawford. I know that you are . . . constrained. I’d never wish to get you in trouble.”
“I . . . um . . . Thank you, madam. I wish I could help—”
“I’m just finding it difficult to . . . focus at the moment.”
She heard him reaching into his slide-pocket, and in the shifting, fracturing window-image she could see him take hold of his tablet. As he hesitated she said softly, “If there is anything that you could share . . . anything at all . . . I would be so very grateful.”
The sound of the tablet sliding free. In the glass he swiped and tapped and then scribbled a pattern password. Encrypted file. She did not react to the reflected tablet, looming larger as he held it out; only when it appeared beside her did she look around.
The face filled the screen, glancing up and to the side, mouth opening as if about to speak. The child’s expression was quizzical, and a bit mischievous, as though she was asking a question to which she knew the answer would be difficult. The hair and clothes were tidier than they had been in the TideFair clip; Zavcka had a sudden memory of sliding in her chauffeured car past children on their way to school, and thinking how much more presentable they were than the noisy brats who filled the streets in the afternoon. There was an early-morning light to the image that convinced her this was that exact scenario: a child on her way to school. In a few hours’ time this pretty imp would become the joyous harpy from the Child’s Play exhibit. The eyes were the same, clever as sin and dark as smoke. Nothing of her surroundings or companions could be made out.
Zavcka put a hand to her mouth and gasped, bending toward the tablet, her other hand outstretched for it as though in the shock of the moment she had forgotten herself. She pulled back with visible effort, let her breath sob, once, twice, then dropped the hand from her mouth to her throat. She felt the tracker necklace under her fingers and kept them pressed against it. That w
as a problem that would have to be solved very soon. Her face worked as she visibly struggled to control herself.
“We believe this is your daughter,” said Crawford. There was a note of surprise in his voice, a hint of almost vindictive pleasure at his awareness of the power he believed he now held. As he began to withdraw the tablet, Zavcka grabbed not it but his wrist, holding it still for another moment, letting her fingers grind into him through the layers of clothing.
“My daughter,” she said with trembling breath, her head tilted as though to examine the image more closely. “Yes . . . I think . . .” Then, “Are you certain she’s old enough?”
“She’s the exact age, madam. Her recorded birth date is within a couple of weeks of when your daughter was expected to be born.”
Zavcka nodded and let go, slowly.
He blanked the screen and tucked it away. “I can’t copy that over to you,” he said uneasily. “I’m sorry, madam—it’s for your own protection, you do understand?”
“Of . . . of course I do. Thank you, Mr. Crawford. Thank you so much.” She heard the break in her own voice, and knew she had not manufactured it this time. Brushing at her eyes for further effect, she crossed swiftly from the window to her chair, as though embarrassed to be seen in such a state. “You’ve already done more than I dared hope.”
Agwé was dawdling, wishing she could manage to look busier, aware of the silent, watchful presence of Qiyem across the project room. They were almost the only members of the day team left and he had finally shut down his workstation for the evening. He’d seen her about to do the same a few minutes earlier, and had come over to ask if she wanted to grab some refreshment on the way home: a drink, maybe a bite to eat. She had muttered something noncommittal about not being quite done yet and sensed that he had now delayed his own departure in response. Now she was both kicking herself for having left him an opening, and feeling guilty at her own reluctance. She knew it must be wrong to rebuff someone who was so solitary, whose reserve was most likely a cover for shyness and loneliness. It was clear that he liked her but he’d always been uneasy about showing it; he’d probably spent ages plucking up the courage for this latest attempt to become friends. She suspected that he actually hoped they could be something more, and even though she wasn’t remotely interested, she thought she should at least be kinder to him, let him down gently.
But there was just something about him—maybe he was too studied in the way he went about it, too contrived? His line about “on the way home” had annoyed her. He lived downriver in Limedog, while her home was a subaquatic apartment in this very building. Why pretend they were both leaving anyway, when he knew all she had to do to get to hers was turn left instead of right, traverse a few corridors and a flight of stairs? It would be easier to take him seriously, she thought, if he didn’t always try so hard. There was an undercurrent of manipulation in his advances that she disliked—but maybe that was the only way shy, awkward people knew to do things. I should be nicer, she thought again.
He’d tucked his tablet away and had put on his coat: dutiful Qiyem, diligently following the official advice to stay out of the river until the authorities issued the all-clear, would be walking home instead of swimming. She sighed inwardly as she watched him crossing the room toward her again, and undocked her own tablet. There was no way to back out, not without looking like a complete hypocrite. Might as well go and have a cup of tea with him; she could try cracking a few jokes, see if he could be unwound sufficiently to laugh at them. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. He stopped beside her workstation and looked at her with an expression that she thought was meant to be inquiring but instead just seemed uncertain. Her heart sank.
“Are you—?”
“Yep.” She made it sound as sunny as she could manage, shoved back her chair and powered down the main screen. “Almost there . . .”
The tablet vibrated in her hand and she felt the buzz of her earset. She glanced down at the screen to see Gabriel’s comcode flashing on it—flashing red, which meant urgent. Her surprise was tinged with a faint relief; maybe something really had come up that would save her from a difficult evening.
“Hang on, Qiyem, just let me see what this is.” She flicked to receive. “Hey. What’s urgent?”
“Agwé, what have you done?”
“Sorry?” He sounded frantic and angry and—was he frightened? She sank back into her chair, feeling alarmed. “What have I done about what?”
“This—You—This vid that’s gone up on the TTP stream, you did it, right? You must have, it’s from when—”
“The TideFair? Yes, of course I did it. What’s the matter?”
“You need to pull it, or change it or . . . or something. Ag, you need to fix it, now.”
“Fix what? Don’t you like it? I thought you’d be pleased.” She ran through the clips in her head, trying to work out what could possibly need fixing, growing more puzzled by the second. “There’s a great shot of Eve in there.”
“Ag, how could you do that?” He was almost shouting at her. She had never heard him sound so upset. “You need permission, you can’t just—”
“I what? Hang on—hang on, Gabriel.” She looked up at Qiyem. “I’m sorry, something’s happened.” She could hear her own voice shaking; the shock of Gabriel’s anger had brought her close to tears.
“What’s wrong?” His uncertainty was genuine now, and mirrored her own.
“I don’t know . . . There’s a problem with a vid I made . . .” Gabriel was ranting in her ear, something about Eve. “I . . . I think I’ve screwed something up. I need to work out what it is. I’m sorry.” She was already sliding her tablet back into the dock, fumbling in her haste. When she glanced up again, Qiyem was still standing there, looking worried now, and a bit lost.
“Should I stay?” he asked.
She shook her head, feeling her lips tremble, not trusting herself to speak. He watched her for another moment, then turned on his heel.
In her earset Gabriel was still going on about his sister, how his sister could not be on a public stream, how she had to take the vid down, take it down, take it down now! Bewilderment wrapped around her like an old fishing net, and the sound of Qiyem’s footsteps walking away no longer felt like an ordeal she had dodged but a refuge she would gladly, gladly have escaped to.
23
The morning came up choking, drenched in a fog so thick it was as though the sun itself were drowning. Gabriel, watching through the windows overlooking the back garden, saw the weak silver-gold radiance of dawn on the horizon fade into a pale gray glimmer that settled on things without illuminating them. It seemed to him that as the minutes went by it grew darker outside instead of lighter—or maybe that was just his mood. He hadn’t slept, and he felt cold and tired and upset with himself. His head was as thick and muddled as the air outside. The cranial band was already in place and on standby; he didn’t think he could deal with any thoughts but his own at the moment.
“It’s fine,” his father said as he came up beside him, one big hand heavy on his shoulder, a mug of coffee in the other, still gruff with sleep. He yawned. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was only onstream for—what? A couple of hours? It’s unlikely any harm’s been done. Just be glad”—with a glance over his shoulder to make sure Eve was still safely upstairs with Gaela, getting ready for school—“she didn’t see it. Then there’d be hell to pay.”
“There will anyway. Her friends or teachers might have seen it, it’ll come up . . .”
He stared into his empty mug, unseeing. “It’s not just that—I messed up, Papa. I really . . . I went overboard with Agwé. I flipped out, I was shouting at her . . . and it’s not her fault. She couldn’t have known. She must think I’m a complete lunatic.”
“Ah.” Bal nodded his understanding, and sipped. “So that’s what’s grinding at you. I thought there was something else.” He grimaced at the first bitter hit of coffee. “Listen, I like Agwé. She’s sharp. She did a good job on th
e edit too—most people probably won’t even notice the change.”
“She did a great job, especially considering how upset she was. She’s my best . . . We’re really close, but of course she doesn’t know about Eve so she thought it would be fun, something we’d all like. She did it to be nice, and I went nuclear on her.” He drew a deep breath. “I need to apologize today, try to explain, but I don’t know what to say.”
Bal was gazing thoughtfully out the window himself now, the steam from his mug rising into the air as though the mist from the garden had snuck inside to warm itself up.
“You want to tell her.”
“Yes . . . well, I mean, I wish I could. But I don’t want to make things worse—I don’t ever want to do anything that . . . that compromises Eve. I know we have good reasons for not telling anyone other than those who’ve known from the beginning. I just—I wish I didn’t have to go in there now and lie to Agwé, not on top of being so horrible to her yesterday.”
“I wish you didn’t either, Gabe, but that doesn’t mean we can make an exception.” His father’s face was impassive, but there was speculation in his tone and Gabriel realized that he was considering doing exactly that. “Do you trust her?”
“Yes.” He did, absolutely, but that conviction just made him feel worse. “I don’t know whether she trusts me anymore, though.”
“Let me have a word with your mother when you and Eve are both gone, okay? We’ll message you.” An affectionate touch on his cheek, an amused, understanding glint in his father’s eyes. “No promises.”
It was shockingly cold, as though autumn had decided to skip ahead a few months and sample the full, stinging bitterness of midwinter. The temperature and the clinging, cough-inducing darkness subdued even Eve, although by the time they met up with Uncle Mik and his boys at the school gate she was back in full chattering flow. Apparently it had needed no more than an afternoon’s play and pandering to return him to her good graces, but Gabriel was weighed down by the irony that while he was being a good brother and mending fences with her at home, he had failed in his greater duty to protect her from the world.
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