Caine's Law

by Matthew Stover

  “That’s a matter too deep for me. He brought you here because he wants you here. He thinks he needs you here.”

  “I can’t imagine what he could need from me.”

  “Are all the men in your family obtuse? You’re here for the same reason I am. And Angvasse or Khryl or whoever she wants to be.”

  “He thinks I can help somehow?”

  “You’re here because he loves you.”

  And this, somehow, is a wound deeper than the last.

  “I’m not even his father. Even if I was, I wouldn’t know him. Not really.”

  “Do you think that means he doesn’t know you?”

  Duncan finds he has no reply.

  “It’s not simple,” she says. “Nothing about either of you is simple. I don’t know how well he knows you, or even how well he thinks he knows you. But I know he loves you. And I believe you love him.”

  “It’s … difficult.”

  “It’s difficult for me too. He’s a difficult man. It’s a good thing I can afford to be patient.”

  “I’d imagine so.”

  She reaches over to take his hand. “I’m not always right, Duncan. But when I say something that’s not true, it’s because I’m mistaken, not false. I don’t tell you this as part of his plan, or any plan. I tell you because I believe it’s true, and I want you to know it.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because he does.”

  Duncan is silent again.

  “He cares about all kinds of things,” the horse-witch says lightly. “Some of them are much more unlikely than you. He loves in the same way he does everything else. Any time he backs away from the brink of a cliff, it’s only to get a running start.”

  “Most people think he doesn’t love anything but himself.”

  “And they’re exactly wrong. His whole life is about who and what he loves. It always has been. For him, love is absolute.”

  “Until he met Shanna, he never seemed like he cared much about anything except his career.”

  “Some of the things he loves are not nice things. At all. But he loves what he loves.”

  “I apologized—tried to apologize. If I had been a good father—even a better father—he never would have had to become Caine …”

  “He loves being Caine. His love for being Caine is just as absolute. Like I said: some things he loves are not nice.”

  “How can he love being … that? Being what Caine is?”

  “Because he’s an asshole,” she says. “You must have noticed.”

  “Just the other day I killed a better man than you’ll ever be, for doing less than you did. Did you really think I’d let you live?”

  — “CAINE” (PFNL. HARI MICHAELSON)

  For Love of Pallas Ril

  The oil trickles into my blood without pain, without heat, without any sensation of power at all. Only an intimation gathering into a certainty that I am loved.

  Loved by a power greater than my mind can conceive.

  Looking over at the armored secmen, their power rifles at slant arms, I know that Studio Security isn’t a job. It’s an assignment. They’re not retired Social Police, because Social Police don’t retire.

  And now I understand why.

  Gayle’s frowning at me. “To Kill a Mockingbird?”

  It seems like a year since I asked the question. “Have you read it?”

  “I—well, I suppose I …” He frowns, squaring his shoulders and stretching his neck like he can’t quite figure out if I’m pulling his dick. “It’s only—that was my mother’s favorite book. She used to read it to me, a few pages at a time, for bedtime stories. After I started school, we used to read it together. She’d help me pronounce the words, and explain the things I didn’t understand. Why do you ask?”

  “It was my father’s favorite book too. For Dad, To Kill a Mockingbird was the Bible. More than the Bible. Dad used to say you can learn most of what you need to know about somebody by finding out his favorite character.” I nod toward the palmpad in his hand. “Dad’s kind of on my mind right now.”

  “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Simon? Ever read it?”

  Faller shrugs. “Sure. Long time ago.”

  “See, Dad had this idea because, y’know, just having read it says you have a brain and some idea what it’s used for, and that you read fiction, and that you have at least a theoretical appreciation for the classics. But beyond that, well—most people who read that novel like to imagine themselves being like this character or that one, because those characters, it’s like they’re more real than you are. Y’know, some guys identify with, say, Tom Robinson, suffering injustice with dignity. Some guys go for Jem, the big brother. Shanna liked Scout—obvious, sure. Dad told me once that my mother favored Maudie Atkinson. And if you know somebody, sometimes you don’t even have to ask who their character is. You, for example, strike me as a Dill guy.”

  Faller stares, blinks and stares again. “How can you know that?”

  “It’s obvious. Dill’s thing is that he knows stuff, right? So smart it’s scary, not strong but charming and resourceful and inventive … and a little sad. And you grew up to be a necromancer. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re not wrong. I just don’t get where you’re going with this.”

  “Gayle?”

  “It’s plausible, I suppose. It still seems to be, well, a little abstract.”

  “Sure. Don’t take it wrong if I’m off. I think you liked the sheriff. Heck Tate.”

  “Well … my mother and I used to talk about how the sheriff had to enforce laws he didn’t always believe in. And how he knew everybody and liked everybody, and everybody liked him, even though he was the local authority. But he wasn’t the only one.”

  “Yeah? I’m thinking, maybe, Calpurnia? Becoming part of a family through devotion and diligence, more to her than meets the eye …?”

  He flushes and looks down like he’s suddenly interested in braiding his fingers together. “That’s—well, I mean …”

  “How much do you know about my father?”

  “I don’t—well, I guess, the usual. Your—uh, Caine’s—promotional pack included a, I suppose, a sanitized profile. You spoke of him once in a while, while we worked together. He was living with you, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Simon?”

  Faller shrugs. “I studied Westerling from the Michaelson text, forty years ago. More. And Tales of the First Folk is required reading in the Conservatory’s Battle Magick program.”

  “My father’s favorite character was—” I have to swallow to clear my voice, and just thinking about it is making my eyes hot. “Dad’s favorite character … is … Atticus.”

  Gayle nods thoughtfully. He’s caught up in the game now. “Plausible. Even obvious. Unconventional single father, educated, intellectual, philosophical turn of mind, exemplary moral courage—”

  “That’s not—” I choke on it. “That’s not why.”

  And now the stinging in my eyes threatens to spill over into moisture trickling onto my cheeks, because I guess when you come right down to it I’m still that seven-year-old kid.

  Sometimes the rage is too big for anything but tears.

  “My father wanted to be him. My father wanted to be exactly him. He pledged his life, his love, his skill and hope and heart in a cause that can’t be won, that he knew can’t be won, because Atticus fucking Finch made him believe there were things more important than winning.”

  “You sound like you’re angry about it. Him. Atticus. Like you hate him.”

  “I’d gut that fucker like a rabbit.”

  It’s the truth.

  This is truth too. “Atticus Finch made my father believe that how you lose can change people, and that changing people changes the world, and you saw that fucking screen. You saw Dad’s prize for fighting his good fight.”

  Again his fingers get interesting. “Hari, I—”

  “You saw. Both of you.”
/>
  “I—yes,” Gayle says warily. “Yes, I saw.”

  Faller just looks away.

  “My father wasn’t—isn’t—a sane man. He couldn’t match his behavior to his ideals, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try. He believed, believes, in the rule of law. He believes in civilization. He believes rational discourse can make the world a better place. He believes everything Atticus Finch believes. He couldn’t live up to his hero, but who ever does?”

  “I’m still unclear on the significance here.”

  “So who’s my character?”

  “Yours?” His eyes go distant. He’s thinking about it. “Not Atticus. You’re no fan of civilization.”

  “I believe in civilization. I just don’t buy the rational discourse part. People are exactly as civilized as somebody forces them to be, and that’s the whole fucking story. Front to back and wall to wall.”

  He squints at me. “Jem? He’s not afraid of anything, and—”

  “Here, look. The theme of that book—the message that most people take away from it, maybe even the theme intended by the lady who wrote it—is basically what Dad got out of it, you follow? That love and hope and courage and patience and reason can right wrongs, or at least show people what the wrongs are, and nudge the world in the direction of justice and peace. That’s what you got out of it, right?”

  Faller shrugged. “That’s what the book’s about.”

  “Not for me.”

  “My mother,” Gayle says slowly, with a thoughtful look over at the Social Police pretending to be secmen, “said it was about the consequences of losing sight of your place in society. That how clever you are, how good you are—how righteous you are—doesn’t matter. At all. Violate the social norm and society will destroy you.”

  Faller looks skeptical. “Hari?”

  I shrug. “What I got out of it is that Atticus Finch is a fucking idiot.”

  Faller gives me a distantly appraising squint that I recognize. That was how he looked at me up on the bluffs above the vertical city: like I’m some kind of exotic bug and he’s trying to figure out how dangerous I might turn out to be.

  He’s about to find out. Everybody is.

  Me too.

  “Oh, sure, great guy, Atticus. Deep thinker. Gentle, kind, and rational. Civilized. Good for him. Bad for everybody else,” I say. “All his fine qualities accomplish a grand total of getting his client shot and his children knifed.”

  “That’s not … I mean, that’s a little extreme …”

  “When the kids are attacked—when some asshole with a grudge decides he’s gonna murder them both—Atticus is off somewhere being civilized. Law enforcement is off somewhere enforcing the law. Civil society is off being civilly social. When the real fucking world comes after two kids with a hunting knife, who’s there for them? Who’s the only fucking one who gets it? Who’s the only one paying attention to what the real world really is?”

  “Really?” Faller’s eyes are still distant, but he’s lost the squint. He trades frowns with Gayle. “Boo Radley?”

  “You’re fucking right Boo Radley. The monster down the block. That’s what I get from that book: when the real world comes after everything you love with a knife, you civilized fuckers better pray there’s a monster looking out for them. Fuck Atticus Finch and fuck his civilization. The only reason civilized Atticus has the luxury to be civilized is because he’s got a monster watching his back.”

  “Boo Radley’s not a monster.”

  “Well, yeah.” The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and there’s a faint whisper of crackling, like static electric discharge. “That’s the main difference between him and me.”

  Okay. Remember that It doesn’t feel like anything at all thing I said before?

  I take it back.

  It seems the physical substance of the blind god trickling into me is kindling my blood. Not in a good way.

  “Hari? Are you all right?” Gayle looks genuinely worried, but maybe not about me, as he’s currently edging backward to clear the secmen’s field of fire. “Is something wrong?”

  Now I’m up against it and I still don’t know how to put words to this. There’s too much. I look over at Gayle again. “I want to say something. I want to say something to the Board, or the Leisure Congress, or whoever the fuck it is wiggling that hand up your ass. They’ll want to hear me. Believe it.”

  Gayle frowns judiciously. “No harm in asking, I suppose.”

  He reaches over to take the palmpad, carefully avoiding the reach of my stripcuffed arms, then steps back to fiddle with the controls. “Give me a moment.”

  “Simon,” I say softly while Gayle tinkers with the palmpad. “Run.”

  His head snaps up and his eyes goggle. “What?”

  “Run. Now.”

  “But—I don’t—”

  “No time to explain. Remember the story I told you? The talk with t’Passe?”

  His eyes go distant, looking inward. “Even your lies become truth …”

  “That’s exactly fucking it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will. If you live long enough. How long will it take you to get your ass in the air and pointed toward home?”

  “I—I can’t. Not now.”

  “Don’t even think about staying. You need to get your family away. All of them, if you can. Yourself too. You might have twenty-four hours, but I wouldn’t bet your grandkids’ lives on it.”

  “Get … away?”

  “Hide. Dig a hole and pull it in after you. Bury yourselves somewhere far enough from the rest of the world that you and yours have a chance to live through this.”

  He looks blank. “Live through this what?”

  “The usual. Dead rising, seas boiling, moon to blood, you know the list. John the Apostle’s greatest hits.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I live for comedy.”

  “You can’t possibly—”

  “You don’t have to believe me. The only reason I’m telling you this is so I won’t feel quite so bad after the Social Police torture your grandchildren to death.”

  “They … But Michaelson … Hari—” His eyes bulge and his lips work like somebody tied a plastic bag over his head. “I can’t leave. We’re in lockdown. Nobody goes in or out while you’re here—and it’s a no-fly zone. Even if I can make it to my car, the Social Police will shoot me down.”

  Of course. That would have been too easy.

  “All right. Go to your quarters. Lock yourself in and don’t come out. For anything. And screen your family. This is probably your last chance to say good-bye.”

  “Caine—Caine, please—”

  “Gayle? We don’t need Faller anymore, do we?”

  He looks up from the palmpad with a frown. I give him a come on, take care of your people toss of the head. “Give him a break, huh? Look at the guy—he’s dead on his feet. And he’s not looking forward to watching this, you know? Shit, Gayle, he’s known me half my life.”

  “I don’t believe anything about this should make him feel—”

  “Gayle, for fuck’s sake, put down the Company Man shit one minute, huh? To hell with what he should feel. Let him go.”

  Gayle swiveled his frown over toward Faller, who pulled himself up unsteadily in a credible I’m Not Hurt good-soldier attitude. “Administrator,” he said faintly, “I’ll stay if you need or want me to. Don’t worry about me, sir. I’ll be all right.”

  “No,” Gayle says abruptly. “You’re done for the day, Professional. With my thanks.”

  Faller sways. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Nothing to thank me for. Good work today, Faller.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Faller ducks his head with a hint of flinch, just long enough to send me a look, then he stumbles for the door.

  And there he goes.

  There are three people still alive who knew me in my twenties. One of them is an immortal zombie meat puppet, another has wires where his eyes should be, and
then there’s Faller. “So what is it? Cancer?”

  Gayle is back fiddling with the palmpad. He’s not listening.

  “He’s been coming back and forth here for a couple years, right? Before you types built shielded structures, the radiation must have been pretty harsh.”

  “Mm?” He flicks me a look and then seems to recall what I’m talking about. “Mm, yes. Unfortunate. He’s a good man.”

  “So it’s magick scary cancer, huh? You can’t cure him?”

  “My impression is that upper management feels heroic measures aren’t likely to produce acceptable return on investment.”

  “Jesus, Gayle, Ninth Circle of Hell much?”

  Wrinkles flicker at the corners of his eyes. “This from a man made rich and famous by killing people for entertainment.”

  “And that makes you less of a scumbag?”

  “Less than you, at least.”

  “Gayle. I am what I am. What does that have to do with what you are?”

  He lowers the palmpad for a moment, frowning. “I too am what I am, I suppose.”

  “Are you? Where’s that loyalty and friendship when Faller needs it?”

  “We’re not going to have this argument, Hari.” He goes back to fiddling with the pad.

  “How much longer?”

  “I’m told they are attempting to assemble a quorum. You may be surprised to learn some of the wealthiest men and women on Earth have lives that aren’t spent waiting breathlessly for your next word.”

  “Yeah, except they are. Waiting. Listening.”

  I know they are. I can feel them.

  The oil—they’re inside me now …

  And I should have a speech ready, but I don’t, because I guess I’m just as stupid as they are. I guess I still believed it wouldn’t go this way. Or hoped, which is worse, because I fucking well know better.

  Hope is for losers.

  It’s like they forget, y’know? A few years go by, and they think I’m not that guy anymore. And what the hell: they’re right. I’m not that guy.

  Funny thing, though: must be nobody sat down and really thought about it. Not one of them sat down and asked himself, “So if he’s not that guy anymore … what guy is he?”