Shine

by Jetse de Vries (ed)

  Singer squeezed back.

  "My partner's a smart guy," Brandon heard himself say. "He's probably the smartest guy I've ever worked with."

  Singer's hand wasn't leaving.

  "And he's, uh, pretty hands-on," he added, unable to resist the joke, "even though he lets me do my own thing most of the time."

  "Has he been asking you to do more than your share of the work?"

  Brandon rubbed his shoulder so Singer could feel it. "No. Why?"

  "He applied for a patent recently."

  The clothes. Of course. "Well, whatever that's about, he handles it on his own time."

  "Good."

  After that the questions were clarifying ones, about odd phrasing in his report or figures they didn't quite understand, math he'd let go unexplained. But it was easier--the whole thing, the conversation, the answers--with that slight pressure on his shoulder. By the end he was joking, he was laughing, he was making sense. And none of them mentioned the clothes. None of them noticed. None of them knew.

  When he left the room, Singer was sitting outside.

  "Why, Heiser," he said. "What a surprise."

  "Uh, yeah," Brandon managed to say.

  "You look flushed. Are you not feeling well?"

  He swallowed. "Thirsty."

  Singer's eyes slid over to the guard manning the door. "You'll let me help my subordinate find a drinks machine, won't you?"

  "Down that hall, to your right."

  "Thank you."

  Then Singer was steering him under mosaic ceilings and filigreed windows, toward a humming monolith of light and brand names. He produced a card from one pocket, flashed it at the machine, and held up a bottle of aloe juice a moment later. "Drink up."

  Brandon drank. Watching him, Singer momentarily peeked over his shoulder and said in a low voice: "We should get your heart checked, Heiser. I thought it was going to pound right through your chest."

  Brandon only sputtered a little. "I got nervous." He drank again, quickly. "They took all my stuff. I felt naked."

  Singer's head tilted. "But not quite."

  Brandon shook his head. "No, not quite." He checked for people watching, but there were none. He kept his voice down anyway. "How did you do it? Mine wasn't even turned on."

  Singer leaned against the machine. "If I told you it was an accident, would you believe me?"

  "I... I guess..." Now he felt stupid. "I guess it was just good timing that it happened during--"

  "I thought you were shut off for some other reason, at first." Singer shifted weight. "I thought something might have happened. I thought the system might be in need of repair."

  Brandon nodded. "Oh."

  "So, you see, I had to invent a little workaround. You know, while I was on my way. Because you weren't answering your phone. And because Tink couldn't find you."

  Now he felt worse than stupid, he felt ashamed. He hadn't even thought to tell Singer where he was going or how much tech he'd have to surrender. He just figured the other man knew.

  "I'm sorry--"

  "Don't be sorry. I was overzealous. I forget that there are things I shouldn't be allowed to see."

  "I know, but, you got there right in time, I was freaking out--"

  "They tried intimidating you?" His voice had taken on a strange, sharp new edge.

  "No, nothing like that." Brandon straightened. "I just didn't know how nervous I was until I got in there, you know? I don't want to lose the project. It's, uh..." Singer's glasses made his eyes that much bigger. "It's special. To me. The project."

  "The project." Singer blinked. "It's important to you."

  "Very." Brandon's head jolted up and down of its own accord. "I want to stay with it. It's um...fulfilling, I guess." He bit his lip. "It's not really something I've ever done before. If you know what I mean."

  The dimple appeared at the side of Singer's mouth. "I think I do." He clapped Brandon on the shoulder and made for the hallway. His real hand was a great deal warmer than the wire-and-servo version. One of Singer's fingernails grazed him right under the collar as it moved.

  "It'll be late when you get out," Brandon said. "You won't make it back to your camp in time. You should come stay with me. For tonight."

  Silence. Brandon heard the squeak of Singer's shoes pivoting on the marble floor. He turned. Singer had his hands jammed in his pockets.

  "I don't think that's a good idea just now," he said. "They'll think we're... plotting something."

  It occurred to Brandon, as he watched Singer leave, that the distance between them stretched not only over years or miles or skill, but attitude. He saw the weight of years not in the lines around his eyes but in the way they never quite looked at him directly. Like they couldn't. Like he needed Tink for that kind of watching, too.

  Their day is over, now. Tink is free again, and is with Singer receiving new orders and fresh charge.

  "Are you shivering?" Brandon asks. There's a trembling in his clothes that he can't identify.

  "There's a stiff breeze," Singer says. "Winter's coming."

  Brandon hacks Tink's eye and focuses now on the place where Singer has been sleeping for the past few days: a rooftop, half-crumbled on one side, accessible only via the adjacent roof and equipped with a pup tent, a roller jug of water, and a lantern-sized solar oven which can heat maybe one can of tea at a time.

  "You'll have to come inside," he says.

  "I don't do well in small spaces."

  Singer could be referring to anything, but Brandon guesses prison, or maybe the kind of training you get for prison, and he feels an almost palpable indignation at the thought. He translates this into nagging: "You'll freeze!"

  "Nonsense. I know how to keep warm."

  "Stay here," Brandon says, before he can stop himself. But then the offer is on the table and he has to back it up: "Stay the winter."

  Silence. "...You know, that wasn't quite part of my plan."

  "Think of all the stuff we could get done!"

  "Oh, I can well imagine." There's the oddest hint of a laugh in his voice. "But I would feel badly about sponging off your host's good graces."

  "We wouldn't need a host." Brandon likes this idea the more he talks about it. "I've learned more Pashto by now. And what I don't know, you do."

  More silence. When Brandon peers through Tink's eye, he can't read Singer's face. It's as flat and blank as ever. Even the set of the shoulders is perfectly still.

  "I mean, you can think about it," he hears himself say. "You might not want--"

  Singer looks up and directs his gaze right at Tink, and Brandon could swear the old man knows he's there behind her eyes because he reaches out a hand. He looks tired, thin and cold and a little sad for some reason. Brandon catches himself leaning forward as Tink swerves through the air to land on Singer's open palm.

  "I know you think it's a good idea..." Singer can't even look at the machine in his hand. And Brandon realizes that what he thought was reticence or disappointment is actually shyness--improbable, inexplicable, but nonetheless evident. "I know you think it's what you want--"

  "Yes." There, he's said it.

  Singer snorts. "It's a good thing they put you in robotics," he says. "You're too impulsive to serve anywhere else."

  "I'm not impulsive, I just like getting what I want."

  "Don't we all." Singer grins and lets Tink go. Brandon guides her upward, releases the hack. She shoots upward--

  --and into darkness.

  Through Singer's bud, he hears a sharp cry, dry and shrill. Onscreen, an error message pops up. It says that the drone has encountered outside interference. It suggests a raptor is responsible: a hawk or falcon or owl. It shows him a list of native species, complete with colour photos and Latin names.

  But then something slams straight into his spine, right between the shoulders, the clothes humming with impact. Tink's eye portion wriggles free of the bird's maw. The feed is damaged. It pixels randomly. He catches a glimpse of the scene as she climbs: m
en with pipes.

  Across the city, through the threads and wires, Brandon feels the beating.

  "Run," Brandon is saying. Onscreen he watches Singer struggle to his knees. The screen seems too small, not big enough to contain the enormity of what he's seeing. He watches Singer retrieve something from one pocket. It's white and sharp and curved like pliers. The multi-tool. He leans forward a little, shifting weight, lurching, and blood spreads over one man's trousers.

  The clothes work overtime rolling Singer's beating over Brandon's back.

  "Run! Why aren't you running?"

  "They want the footage, Brandon, get her out of here," Singer says.

  Too late, Brandon remembers the meaning of the word hammam. It means "bath house." He remembers, too, that this is where Tink had been sent on orders from the predator drone. Don't worry, Singer had said, I'll delete the footage.

  Because it would be sensitive.

  Because it was one of the last private places in the city. One of the last places their eyes, mechanical or organic, could not yet see. One of the last places to conduct business, illicit or otherwise, one of the last places to escape constant observation.

  Brandon realizes this in the instant between one blow and another. They followed her. She flew straight to Singer. And Brandon kept her there. Dawdled. Gave them time to arm themselves. Time, even, to get a falcon. The one creature to whom a UAV was all too vulnerable.

  "Heiser, requesting immediate evac for Singer, coordinates..." The phone is in his hand before he remembers grabbing it. But here time seems to slow down. He can't get the words out fast enough. He hears each second of dead air as the dispatch office relays him, tries calming him down, tells him to breathe, and his clothes are one big hive of activity, one long vibration, because for Singer the blows are coming that fast, that widespread.

  "Get out, get out, get out," he hisses.

  In his ear, Singer answers by groaning.

  "Ten minutes," the dispatch says.

  In his ear, Singer catches his breath but Brandon feels no punch or kick. They've gone off-map. The groin. Maybe the head.

  "That's not fast enough," he says, and then a little lower: "I've got people coming, Singer, there are people coming--"

  "Hack Tink, damn it," Singer says. Brandon hears blood in his voice. He feels a kick in the gut. The clothes ring hollowly in the empty room. In the city it is evening; he smells meat grilling and hears children laughing. In the suburbs, in the long shadow of the mountains, he hears Singer cough. He hears his breathing slow.

  He hacks. But not Tink. Months later, he still remembers his old systems, his old job, his old skills.

  "Singer, I'll be there, two minutes, I promise, I'll be right there--"

  "You're already here," Singer says. Brandon hears the dry scratch of dirt underfoot. He hears the grunt of effort when Singer shuffles forward, a rip in fabric, and an angry, almost annoyed shout. Cursing.

  "Stop fighting them, and get out--"

  "--already there."

  The ear bud is failing. Too many strikes. Too much damage. Head trauma.

  "I can't hear you--"

  "--in two places," Singer says. "--our own map, you know?"

  Onscreen, the nearest predator, now fully under Brandon's control, shows him a display of Singer's coordinates. He sees the shapes darting in and out for extra strikes. Sees Singer's coat spreading around his body like blood.

  Luckily, his new predator is armed.

  Onscreen, he watches the building next to Singer's rooftop transform itself into a pillar of smoke and dust. He hears shouting. He watches them flee. Some of them are hobbling.

  The bombing stuff, he had told Singer, it's mostly over now.

  Really, he had just been getting too good at his job. Too practised. A little too cavalier, perhaps, about human life. A little bit unburdened, possibly, from the crushing constraints of self-awareness.

  "--eally don't mess around, do you?"

  "Are you okay?"

  "...Bleeding."

  "There are people coming. And the predator." He circles it, dives low, so Singer will see.

  "Should find Tink."

  "Fuck the drone. Stay awake."

  "Tall order."

  Across his stomach, Brandon feels a slight pressure. A hand. Singer's. Slowly, Brandon places his in the same spot.

  "--brig you for this, you know."

  "It's okay." His hand clenches the clothes.

  "This is actually a lot better than I was expecting." Singer's voice is remarkably clear. "You know, this was my lifetime achievement award. For services rendered. I could pick any project. Any person."

  The pressure on Brandon's belly increases just a little.

  "I'm looking at the moon," Singer says. "It's come out very early, tonight."

  Unable to stop himself, Brandon peers out his window. The moon is there, etched on the sky, a shiny coin. "I'm looking at it, too," he says. "I'm right there with you."

  "I know you are."

  "Singer." He blinks. "Shit, this is hard--"

  "No, it's easy." Through the clothes, Singer rubs Brandon's shoulder. "You've made it very easy. If you only knew... how scared I used to be..."

  "Of what?"

  No answer.

  "Of what?" he asks again, staring hard into the sky and keeping his voice, somehow, just above a whisper. "What were you so scared of?"

  But the pressure fades, slides away, and his clothes are lighter now with only one man wearing them. Soon, the shadows of his room fill with the chirps of error messages. A missing heartbeat. Lost input. He hears the team arrive on the scene. He hears sirens for the building he has just destroyed.

  He realizes, belatedly, that the predator remains under his control.

  Then he's going over feeds, inputting street names, finding faces. Tink has logged all the falconers in the area and after that it's just a process of elimination. He checks the faces. This one. That one. He swears he recognizes one of them. Even if it was just a half-second glimpse of bad video. He knows that face. He'll know it forever.

  He knows where it lives. And how to destroy it.

  "Heiser, what are you doing?"

  A stranger's voice. He rips out the earbud. How dare they? Always watching except for when it matters most. His phone rings. He throws it to the other side of the room.

  They had warned him about becoming too much of a machine. About identifying too strongly, adopting a mechanistic attitude. As though machines were somehow to blame, and not this thing inside him, this force that roared and spun like a sandstorm. This utterly human thing.

  He is already pressing buttons. Already drafting excuses. They had important footage, he would say. They stole it. And then they killed my--

  At his window, something buzzes. He turns and sees a single glowing eye, like a firefly, blinking unsteadily in the darkness. Damaged. Broken.

  "Tink," he says. He crawls over and scoops her into his palm. She's ripped open and raw--delicate wires now twisted in odd shapes, wings battered. "How did you get here? Did you fight the falcon?"

  In his hand, Tink wiggles worm-like, then begins blinking. A moment later her second pair of wings arrives. They fly unevenly, one wing all crushed so the segment moves in circles. Slowly, carefully, they attempt to re-join each other. The pieces don't quite fit, but they keep trying. They blink ceaselessly at each other, bleeding light, struggling to understand what's missing.

  He's at Narita, at the duty-free bar, where they serve sample-sized sakes from bottles he still can't quite justify buying. Has his own firm, now. Prefers working for himself. Lives out of his mobile. Currently he's using it to interview a new recruit. She's in Korea. That's where things happen, these days. He's flying there later today.

  "I've been told I have kind of an attitude problem," she says.

  "How's that?"

  "I'm not really good at holding back."

  "In what way?"

  "I once suggested we would be safer billeted in a fort m
ade out of PET bottles, like those garbage-picker kids make."

  He pauses, examines his glass. "Seriously, or were you just mouthing off?"

  "...I'm sorry?"

  "Were you suggesting it seriously, or were you being passive-aggressive?"

  A long pause. "Now that you ask, I'm not so sure."

  "Fair enough."

  "That's not really why I was let go, though."

  "What do you think the reason was?" This answer is never quite the truth, but he likes hearing the recruits' version when they give it.

  "They found out I was gay, and then they kicked me out," she says, with a barely-suppressed yawn. "Good riddance."

  "You're gay?"

  "That a problem?"

  "Well... no. Was it a problem for your old team?"

  "Only this one girl. Because I was our team's field medic. I tried telling her that it meant I'd know the terrain better than some bullshit ROTC rat fresh out of high school, but that didn't go over too well."

  "Shocking."

  "I know, huh?" She's laughing. "Anyway. I figured you should know. If you think it's going to be a problem for anybody, I'd rather hear about it now than later."

  Over the phone, he hears something rumble. She curses in Korean. Her details say trilingual, medic, once delivered a baby behind enemy lines after rescuing the mother and others from a labour camp. Has no problem with bloodbots or minilabs. Knows how to read their findings. Feels comfortable with placing them in the right people at the right time. Willing to do undercover work to make it happen. Useful, when his latest project involves mapping the wartime spread of sexually-transmitted disease from within the body in order to locate secret rape camps.

  "Sorry, but I have to go," she says. "I know it probably sounds bad, me cutting my own interview short, but I think something just exploded a couple blocks away. I'd better get there before the collectors do. Seriously, you would not believe how old some of the shit being fired is. Real relics. It's crazy. People are selling it."

  "Have fun," Brandon says, and lets her go. She is clearly more at home in her work than in selling herself, anyway, and he likes that. She's younger than he was when he entered the business, and already twice the hero he can imagine ever being. It's a little scary. He hopes she doesn't burn out. It would be a loss. It has been his good fortune to meet exceptional people in his line of work, and his regret to lose some of them. He doesn't do much with these people, just winds them up and lets them go, sometimes nesting them together like hard, bright jewels. Perhaps that's a mistake on his part, his detachment, the way he deals with people remotely.