by Astrid Amara
Mack wrapped himself around me, his body a hot, limp weight.
“This isn’t comfortable,” I complained.
“It is for me.” His eyes closed. He nuzzled his head into my chest. “Think I’ll sleep here.”
“Yuck.” But I didn’t have the energy to move. I closed my eyes.
Chapter Seven
I’m No Actor
I had expected a night curled up with Mack would have been sleepless, given how much the man tossed and turned while he slumbered, but I’d been wrong.
I awoke early, surprisingly rested, with Mack beside me, motionless. He appeared boneless. The tension that usually marked his face in sleep was gone.
And there was another face beside his. Sometime in the night Carly had joined us on the floor and insinuated her way between us.
As soon as she and I made eye contact, she sprang fully awake, whipping Mack in the face with her tail.
“Goddamnit!” Mack groaned, rolling the other way.
I stretched and spent a few minutes petting the dog before getting up myself. My body was sore in places, but my shaking had mostly subsided. I walked naked through the tempcamp to get Carly something to eat, and I enjoyed the rare moment of nudity. But as I bent down to offer Carly a tray of ground soy, I watched my artificial knee bend, whirring as I moved, and I tried once again to recall the incident that had cost me my leg.
How could I not remember this? What else had I forgotten? If a person could lose a leg, an arm, and their entire past, what other secrets could be hidden in my memories? And what if they weren’t hidden, what if they were gone?
Why would Trust give us a drug that erased our pasts? Fighting was a cumulative skill that improved with practice. Erasing prior combat missions didn’t make us better soldiers.
Then again, we weren’t expected to be better soldiers. We were expected to be killers. I thought back on the few images I retained, and they were all of me shooting from a distance. That was muscle memory and practice, not thought.
And Peak made us fearless. I missed that most of all—the complete lack of concern for my own well-being, or the care of others. Life was incredibly freeing without having to worry about one’s own mortality. On Peak, the joy was in the violence, not the life afterward.
Mack moaned some more, rolled around, and finally got himself upright. I took myself and Carly outside for a piss. When I re-entered the tempcamp, Mack was up and reloading the buggy for our final leg to the Alspree Biodome.
I drove this leg, since it only required us heading due north to hit the belt of biodomes. As I drove, Mack sat in the passenger seat and fiddled with the electronic equipment he’d scavenged from the rev outpost and the back of the buggy, providing an ongoing monologue of complaints against the manufacturers of programmers, the ugliness and squirming presence of Carly on my lap, the monotony of yellow sand.
We made good time north. A storm looked as though it would bring our movement to a halt, but passed east of us.
I tuned out Mack’s rambling and instead tried to tenderly pick through images and memories in my head, desperate to figure out how much of my memory remained. It was disconcerting, not knowing myself. It felt vulnerable, and I hadn’t been vulnerable in years.
As soon as I had the thought, an image of myself, on my knees, screaming, filled my head. I gripped the wheel, trying to get a grasp of what I recalled.
“What’s wrong?” Mack snapped.
Clearly I’d not developed any acting skills in the decade I’d been on Peak, because he knew right away when something freaked me out. “Nothing,” I said unconvincingly.
I hated this. I hated not knowing basic things. How long had I been wearing this armor? When was the last time I’d had a conversation with someone other than Mack?
What did my face look like?
Vague impressions, distant feelings—they filled my mind like cobwebs, insubstantial and sticky.
“I can’t remember,” I murmured to myself.
But Mack heard me. “Remember what?”
I shrugged. “Anything. It’s not just the last ten years, or you, or what I’ve been doing. I can’t even remember what I look like. How can I not know what I look like?”
“You want my version?” Before I could answer that, Mack started in. “You’ve got dark brown, gorgeous thick hair. Your eyes are a deep brown. Your dick is—”
“All right, all right, I don’t need the X-rated version.”
Mack chuckled. “Okay then. How about I tell you about the time you and I got expelled from the seventh form, only to be re-enrolled because they realized there was nowhere else to put us?”
He launched into a lengthy tale of juvenile exploits, and I let him talk because it saved me from having to, and because I felt like I should be storing these memories somehow. They were funny, and I laughed, but they didn’t feel like mine. They were like descriptions of an intricate plot in a film I’d only seen the trailer to.
We stopped for lunch and to let Carly run. She rushed gleefully through the sand, ignoring the particles hitting her raw skin. Then she barreled right into my arms.
My heart lurched.
“You’re the one who said you can’t keep her.” Mack frowned.
“I know.” I petted her head. For a moment, I imagined what my life could have been, if anything in my past had allowed it to be. What if I’d learned veterinary science, or became a trainer, or, hell, picked up dog shit for the urbanites in the crowded biodomes?
I looked at Mack. He shook sand from his dark hair. He was so handsome I felt flushed thinking about how he had touched me, how he’d let me take him.
I thought it might be nice to do it again, one last time, before I betrayed him and turned him in to HQ.
“Mack?” I asked.
He looked at me, a smile on his face.
“Did I…” I sat back in the buggy, phrasing my question. “Did I ever want to do something different?”
Mack’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Be something other than a soldier.”
“Of course you did. We both had all sorts of crazy fantasies about what we could have done with our lives.”
“But we didn’t,” I asked, not to be morose, but simply for clarification.
Mack sat in the buggy, shut his door, then reached over to pet Carly’s head. “We didn’t. All we had were dreams and each other.”
I rolled my eyes.
“But we had each other,” Mack repeated. He lifted his hand and touched the side of my face. “And that made everything bearable. We survived abuse, corruption, and combat when we were together.”
“Except I didn’t,” I said. “I died.”
Mack looked upset. “Yeah. You died.”
“And here I am.”
“God knows how or why.” He leaned forward again, mouth curving into a smile. “But we’ve been given a second chance. And this time we’re going to do what we want to do, not what others force us to.” He tried to kiss me, but Carly squirmed up and got in the middle of it, making us both laugh and pull away.
“Ugh!” Mack wiped his mouth. “Puppy germs.”
“She’s cleaner than me, and you licked a lot more than my mouth last night,” I reminded him.
Warmth filled Mack’s eyes. “Sounds like something worth repeating.”
I felt oddly content. Carly settled once more as I started the buggy. “You know, this is a nice buggy. Love the aircon.”
Mack shook his head. “I’m so glad you’re off that damn drug. You sound like yourself again.” He tapped his leg to a silent beat only he heard. “How long were you on it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t remember. But I loved it. I’d still give up what remains of my left arm to have another hit.”
Mack didn’t seem to find that amusing.
By the time Sol 10 started its descent, the shimmering outline of the Alspree Biodome came into view. We approached; the train lines became visible, and other bugg
ies zoomed around the outskirts.
It felt strange to be back in civilization after a week. I was so focused on being close to communication, and another Peak hit, that I nearly missed the vehicle with the Trust Insurance logo parked near the airlock security gate.
But as we got in line behind two other buggies entering the biodome, I spotted the familiar icon of a heart encased in a house and saw the steely, distant stare of an agent behind the wheel.
Agent 390.
Fuck. Of all the agents to spot me first, it would have to be my nemesis, the woman ahead of me on the kill stats. She was only a few more days away from scoring the four-hit prize. I wondered if I was the target she planned to use to up her chances.
At the security gate, Mack flashed a generous grin as well as an old Recon ID badge he pulled from one of his myriad pockets. The video clip on the ID was of him much younger, wearing a Calypso military uniform. He explained in exasperating detail how he and I were reminiscing about a mission we’d completed with C Squad a decade ago. He grilled the soldier on what the units were like these days, how different they were from our time. It was impressive how Mack turned his continual yammering into a disabling weapon of distraction and confusion. By the time he shut up long enough for the belabored soldier to reply, the soldier waved us in, seeming relieved to see our backs.
We were in line with two other vehicles in the airlock hatch. When it opened, I noticed that the Trust Insurance jeep slipped behind us and got into the lock with us.
I turned to stare at her. I wasn’t sure if her orders would be to shoot on sight, or wait for a signal. Since I couldn’t communicate via osys, I simply placed my palm against the buggy window in the symbol for wait.
I didn’t know if she saw it. I had to hope until I could get my osys linked.
Inside Alspree, the air was clean and cold. The biodome wasn’t entirely agricultural, but it had several large agribusiness farms that specialized in colder weather crops like potatoes, rye, peas, and kale.
The city of Alspree stretched in a doughnut shape around the central farmland, with two main one-way roads circling the dome as the primary thoroughfare. At the airlock we entered, most of the skyscrapers and office complexes were owned by the Fishman Corporation, one of the largest corporate agribusinesses on Calypso.
As I drove along clockwise street of the narrow city, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, looking for Agent 390. If she tailed us, she did so back far enough that I couldn’t spot her.
At last Mack pointed to a concourse and asked me to park the buggy. It felt good to step outside the vehicle and not be immediately overwhelmed by sand in the face. Carly seemed to find it novel as well and rushed around me enthusiastically before darting off to piss.
Mack stretched, then cracked his neck. “All right. First things first. I need to contact my people, eat something that doesn’t come in bar form, then shower. What about you?”
I shrugged, not wanting to give my plans away. “I’m following your lead. I have no memory, remember?”
He pointed a finger at Carly, who attracted cries of pity from a couple petting her. “What about her?”
“I should find a shelter for her,” I said, though the words tasted sour in my mouth. “Or, at the very least, a walk barrier.”
Mack rummaged around the back of the buggy and withdrew a length of bungee cord. “Here, do it the old-fashioned way with a leash.”
I whistled and, to my utter surprise, Carly actually responded, bounding over to me with gleeful leaps. My heart ached. I had forgotten that caring for someone could hurt.
As I tied a loop in the bungee and slipped it over her neck, Mack watched me. His smile disappeared.
“Ivo,” he said, using my name as a question.
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to call your team?”
I swallowed, then shook my head. It was harder lying to him than I thought it would be.
Mack stared at me, hard. “I’m about to expose myself, and my clients. I need to know I can trust you.”
I slipped my arm around his waist. “I’m no actor,” I told him.
He looked shocked by the words.
“What?” I asked.
“You used to say that all the time.”
I shrugged. “I’m with you. It’s going to take a while for my head to clear but…” I reached up and cupped his chin. “I remember enough now to know what you’re saying is true.”
His eyes got a little watery. He put his hand over mine, then pulled my palm back. “We got to get your thumb fixed. Luckily, our client is a doctor.” He winked. “Come on.”
I felt a flush of guilt at the look of pleasure on Mack’s face. My words had clearly thrilled him.
But the truth was, I didn’t remember him. I liked him, I admitted to myself. He was handsome and funny and a great lover. But that didn’t mean I knew him well enough to throw away everything familiar to me.
He took my arm. “Let’s replace these busted osys.”
Alspree had a large outdoor shopping market, with dozens of people wandering between the small booths selling everything from virch tech to plums. Mack looked over the booths until he found a small dealer in what appeared to be contraband tech, the kind without registration key codes.
“I need two,” he told the seller, a young girl who looked barely ten years old.
She scowled at us. “How will you pay?”
“I can transfer credits as soon as I get online,” Mack told her.
The two of them negotiated and fiddled with devices, while I scanned the crowd. My hands twitched for a weapon. To ease my anxiety, I pushed the small blade out of the implant in my left middle finger. At least I had something at the ready.
I saw a flash of metal in the distance and spotted 390. She watched me from a distance, and I nodded to her. She hesitated and didn’t nod back. Her short-cropped blonde hair couldn’t hide the brutal scar that wrapped around her neck. I didn’t know what had happened to her to get such a wound, and for the first time, I was curious.
I didn’t know anything about her, I realized. And I’d known her for ten years.
Well, I did know she was an incredible sharpshooter, better than me. So I watched her warily, wishing like hell I had a plasma shield.
“What the hell is that?”
I turned. Mack pointed at the scalpel coming out of my left hand, mouth open.
I retracted the scalpel. “Nothing.”
“Like hell, nothing! Let me see your hand.” He reached for it. He studied my fingers. “What else do you have in there?”
“Skeleton key, laser, small electrical pulse.”
“Jesus.” He snorted. “I’m glad I didn’t ask you to finger me last night.”
I burst out laughing. “Gross!”
“Though maybe that small electrical pulse—”
“No!” I yanked my hand back. “Where’s my osys?”
Mack held it out, open-palmed, but when I reached for it, he pulled back his hand and waggled his eyebrows.
I sighed. “What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
I shook my head. “I’m not shooting electrical pulses up your ass.”
He laughed. “How about fucking me instead?”
I hummed. “I could arrange something like that.”
“Deal.” He handed me the osys, and I quickly strapped it on my left wrist. I missed the heavier weight of my old osys with the Peak dispersal system.
The small, lightweight ear implant was nicer than my old system, however, and as soon as the wire slipped down my ear canal and I blinked, I saw the connection symbol in the corner of my eye. At long last, I was back online.
Mack leaned close and whispered in my ear. “I gotta meet with Rosslyn, and having you with me will freak her out. I should explain you first. How about you go find us some place to stay tonight?”
I nodded, grateful for an opportunity to get away. “When are we going to rendezvous with your client?”
“I don’t know.” Now that I thought about it… “I don’t think I get paid.”
It was the wrong thing to say to keep Mack collected. His eyes burned with anger. “Fucking…fine. Give me your wrist.”
I stretched out my arm, and he laid his osys over mine. “Transfer one thousand credits,” he said, and I assumed he spoke to his system.
My wrist buzzed, and a message appeared in the corner of my eyesight, showing the deposit of one thousand credits.
“Thanks,” I said.
He leaned down and kissed me. “Call me with where you got a room.” He stared down at Carly, then patted her head. “God, that dog is ugly. You should give her a bath if she’s rooming with us.”
I smiled, excited by the idea of keeping her. “Yeah, yeah.” I watched him wave and depart, his tall frame distinguishable in the crowd. I glanced down at Carly, who wagged her tail at me. “I guess we need to have baths. You up for it, girl?”
Carly yapped and clawed at my legs. I picked her up and nuzzled her warm skin. When I glanced back up, 390 had a gun pointed at me.
Chapter Eight
This Is Taking Longer Than I Expected
“Agent 505, report.” Agent 390 spoke without moving her lips.
I glanced around and realized no one looked toward us. But that wouldn’t last long in such a busy location full of civilians.
“Lower your weapon,” I said quietly, nodding to a service alley behind one of the larger blue buildings. “Let’s talk in private.”
She narrowed her eyes. I put Carly back on the ground and lifted my hands up. “I’m unarmed and on your side. But I don’t have the repository. I’m going to get it back, but not if you get us arrested by brandishing a weapon in a public place.”
She lowered the energy pistol and followed me into the alley. She moved extraordinarily fast, even at a walk. I did as well, but this was the first time my head was clear enough to really see how odd and unnatural the movement looked.
“Report,” she stated again, as soon as we were out of sight of the crowds.
“The comm blast on the train shorted my osys. I pursued the assailant via buggy, and have spent the last six days with him retrieving the repository. He has it and will be rendezvousing with other revolutionaries to transfer ownership. I’ve got him believing I’m on his side and have given up any interest in it.”