“Could you give this to someone else?”
“Who else you want to be looking at this shit?”
“No, I mean, could one person pass it to another? Sly like?”
Sandro frowned at the samples. He squeezed a pustule on his arm. “Maybe. I heard the CIA tried giving Putin cancer, way back when, with the early programmables. You could program these tissues to make a tumour, I guess.”
“So you could get someone sick, and then hold their health for ransom?”
Sandro’s eyes widened. He crouched on his knees. “Gonna pretend you didn’t just say that. I don’t even want that thought in my head.”
The timer dinged. They went back into Sandro’s “office,” and he slid the glass wall back into place. Then he threw images up on it. Hwa recognized the dates. He was comparing the two samples, Calliope’s and Layne’s.
They were identical.
“You know a lot of sick people,” he said.
“I know a lot of dead people.”
Sandro reached over to a shelf above the scanner, dug in behind some beakers and flasks, and pulled out a necklace. A rabbit’s foot dangled at the end of it. He slung it over his head. “You’re an ill wind, you.”
“You should meet me mum.”
“Think I have, once or twice,” Sandro said, and winked.
Hwa snorted. “Is there enough here to do a search?”
“Now there is. Now we got more of the original.”
He expanded the image, capped it, and threw it onto another screen. Rapidly, similar images overlaid it, like cards being shuffled together. Finally, another image popped up.
It was the Lynch logo. A press release. About the experimental reactor they were building deep in the Flemish Pass Basin, right under New Arcadia.
“Project Krebs will allow Lynch to build Canada’s energy future from the ground up, with less risk and fewer errors. We are confident in the capability of the Krebs self-assembling devices to assist in construction of the reactor…”
And there, at the bottom of the release, was a render of the self-assembler machines. It wasn’t a perfect match—the matching function straight-up said it wasn’t—but it was close. Damn close. Almost like looking at the difference between a prototype and the finished product. Only one was made of protein, and the other wasn’t.
“Why would industrial construction devices be in your friend’s blood?”
“I don’t know,” Hwa said. “She had a lab on a chip to keep an eye on her hormones, but I don’t think she was on any other regimen. Especially not anything this shiny and new. The union couldn’t afford it. But keep digging. I’ll be out of town for a bit.”
“Lucky you.”
“Not really.” Hwa winced. “I can’t stand the woods.”
13
Terra Nova
“I won’t be coming with you to Terra Nova,” Síofra told her, as she zipped up her pack the morning of the trip. “Sorry. I’ve been asked to refocus myself here in town.”
“Refocus yourself?”
“There’s some concern…” He cleared his throat. “Katherine and Zachariah wonder if perhaps my attention is a bit divided, lately.”
Hwa scowled. “Divided how? What do they mean? You’re great at your job. You—”
“It’s all right, Hwa.” He chuckled softly. “Don’t worry about me. It was always a little strange for me to be going on the trip. The panels and talks are only at the very fringes of my subject area. I put in for it because I wanted to go, not because I needed to go.”
“They’re punishing you,” Hwa realized. “You stayed the night, after Layne died, and they know where you are all the time, and now you’re being punished.”
“I suppose you could read it that way, but—”
“This is bullshit,” Hwa said. “Nothing happened!”
“I know.” He sounded very tired. He’d probably woken up early just to tell her this. It was 03:45.
“You were just being nice. My friend died, for shit’s sake. You were just being helpful.”
“I suppose you could read it that way,” he repeated, after a long moment. “In any case, I wanted to let you know myself. And tell you to be careful.”
“I’ll try and avoid the Big Bad Wolf, b’y.”
He laughed. “Please do. Wolves are a threatened-enough species as it is. My heart bleeds for the wolf who meets you on the road.”
* * *
Naturally, her period came the night before they were supposed to travel. She was regular as clockwork, but had secretly hoped that just this one time, she might be a little late. Because very few things sounded less appealing than taking a seaplane—a beer can with wings—all the way up Newman Sound while bleeding like a stuck pig. The water taxi to the seaplane jetty did nothing to help. It bucked across the waves so hard her teeth clicked.
“Rough one out there, today,” the taxi driver said. “Real cunt of a current.”
“How come nobody ever says it’s a real dick of a current, b’y? What’s with that?”
The driver said nothing more.
Being on the water meant getting a better view of the rig and the site of the future reactor. The rig looked sadder, these days. Only a couple of the pumps were still working. Just enough to claim some tax credits. But the signs proclaiming progress on the reactor were brightly lit, even at this hour.
FUTURE SITE OF FLEMISH PASS BASIN EXPERIMENTAL REACTOR, the signs read. Diagrams of the reactor awakened and projected as the taxi bobbed past. It looked sort of like a Chinese steam bun with a big egg yolk inside. Only the egg yolk was really a wad of experimental matter, and the pastry was several layers of bio-crete. It would have been more impressive if one of the projectors hadn’t been hacked to play old footage of Chernobyl and Fukushima and Three Mile Island to the tune of “Where or When.”
The rough currents on the North Atlantic were matched only by the turbulence of the skies above it. And in the seaplane, they felt every peak and valley in the pressure. After the third time Hwa bounced out of her seat, she started to wonder if her cup would manage to stay in place the whole trip.
The turbulence did nothing to reassure her. It did give her an opportunity to learn more about the team Security had sent to watch over them at the event. Apparently, Silas Lynch had picked them himself. He’d only sent their profiles over the night before—his assistant had apologized profusely, of course—and Hwa spent a good portion of the night going over their histories with Prefect. Their names were Theodore, Christiansen, McGuire, and Beaudry. Most of them were athletic white guys who hadn’t scored hockey scholarships or, for that matter, any other kind of scholarships. Not that Hwa had any room to judge. They were all about Hwa’s age, and good-looking. In the file, Silas had said something about finding “camera-ready security” and “putting an attractive face on protesters’ concerns.” Beaudry had applied to the Mounties, but he washed out of the basic psych exam. He was the one Hwa worried about.
The four of them spent the whole flight texting and laughing about the goings-on at a party they’d all been to on the weekend. Hwa made her status invisible, and used Prefect to peep their channel. She watched the conversation flow across her specs as Joel went over his notes for the next day’s meeting.
B: then we spitroasted her
T: fuck I missed that
B: I know u poor bastard
C: u missed out
M: more for us
T: shit
B: it will happen again tho no worries
C: Silas likes to reward loyalty
M: parties > bonuses
B: f’real
M: bonuses > parties
B: wrong—nowhere to spend that money in that shithole
T: point
C: we should get hazard pay, not hookers
M: you won’t say that if the rig blows up again
M: you’ll wish you got your dick sucked more
B: me I just want more anal
B: that firecrotch threw down wi
thout batting an eye like a real pro
M: oh yeah Eileen
M: cum on Eileen
B: shit we sang that song so many times
C: I think I got tennis elbow that night, playing that game
T: it’s a shithole, for sure, but it’s also like the perfect island of pussy
B: yeah no wonder the riggers won’t leave
T: “i can’t leave all this p00n!”
M: soon none of them will be able to afford it
M: it’ll just be us and the other lynch guys
B: THE LYNCH MOB
M: holy fuck
M: that’s hilarious
“Are you all right?”
Hwa startled. She ripped her specs off and looked at Joel. “Eh?”
“Your knuckles are white.”
Hwa looked at her hands. She licked her lips. “Oh, aye. Turbulence, b’y. Just turbulence.”
* * *
The resort had designated a guide to take them through the forest to the estuary. They were supposed to spend time looking at rare birds, and then have a PechaKucha—whatever the hell that was—about how young people could shape the future of Newfoundland and Labrador’s environmental conservation efforts. But really, the meeting was about the reactor. Joel was supposed to be the face of the company that appealed to younger people. That meant he had to allay their concerns, even though he was technically a lot younger than all of the people he was trying to persuade and, historically, Hwa suspected that fifteen-year-olds had a hell of a time convincing people in their early twenties of anything at all. After that, they’d have a press conference about how the meeting had gone.
A swarm of flies followed them into the forest. Hwa relaxed a little when she noticed them. Anyone who tried making trouble for her or Joel would be caught on camera. As long as she stuck close to Joel, they’d be fine. And that was good, because being in the woods creeped her out. She couldn’t see anything. Sure, there were maps in her specs and bright orange t-shirts and it would take a solar flare for her to be physically capable of being truly lost to GPS. But everything was alive out here. And not in a good way. Not in a “doors opening for you because they know you’re there” kind of way. In a “things eating you” kind of way. Every step she took, she felt bugs under her clothes.
Eventually, the guide led them to a fork in the path that led to a split-rail boardwalk. It stretched out over green marshland dotted with lilies and dragonflies, and ended in a tiny piece of marsh that sprouted like an island among the washes of bright, shallow water. In the centre were two concentric circles of logs. This was where they would have their meeting. Even Hwa had to admit it was sort of pretty, mostly because it was out in the middle of the water under an open sky, and not in the long shadows cast by trees that creaked and groaned and whispered every time a wind came up.
And this was why, when a soft chime sounded in her ear, Hwa asked to be excused. It was doubtful that anyone would try to get to Joel while he was surrounded by a bunch of white scholarship kids talking about which variety of coconut oil was the most ethical. She would be basically defenceless. Vulnerable. The perfect target. If someone on Silas’s team was trying to get rid of her, this would be the perfect opportunity.
Hwa followed the trail a little further up until she heard water. She’d decided that this creek would be the best place, when she first mapped the trail in preparation for the trip. It was ideal. Someone could drown her there. Just sneak right up behind her and shove her face under the water. They’d be fools to pass up an opportunity like that. She stepped off the path and climbed down a little ways to the water. She paused to raise her arms and stretch. She bent and touched her toes. Twisted her spine, first to the right and then to the left. She rolled her neck. Cleared her wrists of any tension. Then she settled on her haunches, to wait.
“Prefect,” she whispered, “show me Joel.”
A feed unfolded across her vision. The whole group was still sitting there on the circle of logs, but now they were doing some sort of dance. No, it was a game. It looked like charades. Probably some sort of alternative communications thing. Hwa counted all four of Security’s guys at the fringes of the gathering. None of them was watching Joel. All of them were watching two girls mirroring each other with their hands. As the exercise continued, Beaudry elbowed Christiansen and got him to pay closer attention to the girls.
Hwa refocused. Beaudry nodded at Theodore, and then he headed back to the trail. He drifted out of the fly’s vision, and Hwa switched back to her own vision. She tabbed over to infrared. The battery icon warned her about not using it for too long. She winked it away. In infrared, the trees turned from green to grey. They looked like tall, silent ghosts judging her for a long-forgotten crime. She did a quick check of her blind spots. Nothing. She turned her earbud up. Calmed her breathing. Waited.
Nothing.
Birds. A twig. The rush of water. Something crawled under her shirt. She tried not to think about it.
Something rustled in the brush across the creek. In her specs, it registered as a big white blur hunkered down on all fours. It trundled along through a break of ferns and stopped at the water. Only when it stretched out its head to drink did she understand what she was looking at.
A bear.
Hwa didn’t breathe. She had really only skimmed the safety warnings about the wildlife. The real danger, the guide had assured them, was the fact that it was moose season, and there were hunters in other areas of the park. Thus those terrible orange t-shirts. They were so nobody got shot by accident.
A hand closed over her mouth. She reacted: reached up and grabbed the little finger on her attacker’s hand and yanked it down and away. Heard the snap when the bone broke free of his hand. Bounced up to her feet, slamming her head back. Felt it connect with bone. Whirled around, other hand already cupped and outstretched to box his ear. It was Beaudry. She cuffed him upside the head. When she advanced on him, he scuttled away up through the brush toward the trail.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hoarsed, cradling his hand. “I was protecting you from that fucking bear!”
Hwa turned. The bear was long gone. Ferns wavered in its wake. Apparently that whole thing in the brochure about animals being more scared of you than you should be of them was actually true.
“What bear?” Hwa asked.
“Oh, come on.” Beaudry stood up He hawked back and spat blood. It glowed white for a moment in the infrared, and then cooled to grey. “That thing was staring straight at you. You’re lucky I came along.”
“Oh yeah. I’m real lucky you snuck up on me.” Something sparked in her mind. An idea. A gamble. “That’s just your M.O., right?”
Beaudry wiped his nose. “What?”
“And at the school. I saw you. Under the sprinklers. Your shiny new invisibility suits ain’t shit under the water.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about those?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m on to you.”
His face closed. She watched him take a deep, calming breath. The kind of one you took before you told a big lie. He swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. You think I don’t know how your boss feels about his baby brother? Of course I know. It’s fucking obvious. But if you think you’re gonna scare me off this job, you better think again.” Hwa snatched his hurt hand. Squeezed the fingers together. Watched tears rise up in his eyes. Smelled his chicken soup-y fear sweat mingling with black earth and pine resin. She lowered her voice to keep it from shaking. “And if I find out that you or any of your fucking Lynch Mob over there had something to do with my friend Layne dying, your finger won’t be the only thing of yours that gets broken. Do you understand me?”
He pushed her away, hard. She stumbled back. Almost fell. Corrected herself. “No,” Beaudry said, “I don’t. You’re a crazy bitch. I shouldn’t have helped you.”
Hwa watched him making his way back to the trail. When he w
as a good three paces ahead, the adrenaline trickled in. It had been a long time since anybody put hands on her like that. She forced the air from her lungs. Made fists. Pictured the master control room. All the buttons. All the switches. Big convex screens with her problem on them, walking away, getting smaller, turning into mere pixels.
She’d given the whole game away. She’d let their whole theory slip right past her lips. But there was nothing for it. It was done, now. And it was time to attend Joel’s press conference.
* * *
The press conference was more like a briefing. Only a couple of local journalists came, and the rest was done by telepresence. The questions—or at least, their focus and tone—had all been approved by stratcomm the day before. That was how each telepresence journalist earned the right to their log-in. They’d tag in to the conversation as it unfolded, their avatars briefly lighting up the same spot of floor positioned so that Joel and the folks who’d handed out the scholarships could talk. Hwa spent most of her time just scanning the crowd and not really listening. The pain that she’d managed to keep at bay had redoubled its efforts, and now it felt like someone was excavating her uterus with a rusty garden trowel. It was hard to stand up straight. She had to pretend that her chin was balanced on a shelf in order to maintain her posture. She kept her hands behind her back so she could knuckle it once in a while, when she thought no one was looking.
“Joel, your father’s company has come under fire for using self-replicating nano-scale machines to build this new reactor, and not human crews.”
Hwa snapped to attention. She focused on the reporter asking the question. She was a round-faced blonde from the PST. Her avatar moved its lips at a slight lag behind her voice. It made her look like an old cartoon. The extra eyelashes she’d tattooed onto her cheekbones didn’t help matters, either.
“My father believes in the power of innovative technology to accomplish large-scale projects that help people.”
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