by John Kessel
Silently they watched as she showed them three examples of raw video and the final use of that footage in her graffito. “The fact that I own this footage demonstrates at least that I had something to do with the creation of Looker’s video. Now, here is an unused portion of the footage I shot that night.”
On the screen stood Carey, half naked in the dim light. “I’m going to have to take care of that,” he said in the video. Mira let them watch enough to know it was definitely him.
“Carey helped me shoot this video,” Mira said.
“These images could be synthesized,” said Friedasson.
“You can have whoever you wish examine this. It’s genuine.”
Debrasdaughter spoke. “Perhaps we can find out more directly. Carey, is she telling the truth?”
Carey watched Mira levelly. It was hard for her not to squirm under his gaze. “Yes,” he said. “That’s me.”
“This doesn’t prove that Carey was part of your subversive postings,” Friedasson said. “Maybe he didn’t know what you were going to use this video for.”
“Two people were almost caught posting it, in the Gilman neighborhood,” Mira said. “Some images of them were captured. You can’t tell much from them, but you can see that they were a man and a woman. The woman was me. The man was Carey.”
Annasdaughter turned to Carey. “Is this true?”
Carey looked Mira in the eyes for a long moment. His breathing was audible. Finally, he said, “Yes. Yes, it was me.”
Carey sat heavily in his chair. Roz almost looked sorry for him. Wandasdaughter was nonplussed. Hypatia finally spoke, “These are misdemeanors at worst.”
“We should ignore misdemeanors?” Debrasdaughter asked.
“It’s hardly surprising that a male Cousin might be involved in protest,” Hypatia said. “It would be surprising if a man as intelligent as Carey, with the capacity he has to accomplish worthwhile things, confined himself to playing games.”
Mira said, “Carey helped me create the BYD video.”
As she dropped this bombshell, Mira watched Carey. It was hard to do. He did not take his eyes off her.
“That’s not true,” Carey said, his voice steady. “I never did that.”
“Can you prove that you had nothing to do with it?” Annasdaughter said.
“Why are you lying, Mira?” Carey asked.
“Carey, please don’t talk to Mira right now,” Debrasdaughter said. “Can you prove that you had nothing to do with this?”
“I shouldn’t have to. She should have to prove I did it.”
“You admitted that you worked with her on these other vids.”
Carey looked trapped. “Yes. But I had nothing to do with the fake explosion. I was at work when it happened.”
“Mira,” Debrasdaughter said, “can you prove that Carey was involved?”
“No. But he was.”
“You must ignore all of this,” Wandasdaughter said. “This is hearsay, without a shred of proof.”
Annasdaughter said, “Regardless, both of you are guilty of serious offenses.”
“Mira,” Debrasdaughter said, her old woman’s voice puzzled, “you were called to speak on Carey’s behalf. Why are you testifying against him?”
Mira said, “I think Carey has every right to get involved in protests and fight for his rights. I appreciated his help in doing the work I did, and I’m not ashamed of it. But I don’t want to see Val hurt.”
“Not ashamed of the panic and the injuries you caused?” Ameliasson asked.
“Carey can make his own choices. Even if admitting I am Looker gets me exiled, I don’t want Val’s generosity twisted by people seeking power. Despite my sympathy for his motives, Carey should not be given custody.”
By the time Mira had finished speaking it was case closed, Hypatia thwarted, Carey sunk, Mira on the edge of exile. All of them defeated, and Mira had done it in minutes, entirely by herself. Hypatia sat back, a speculative expression on her face, watching Mira. Mira would bet her left arm that she had surprised Hypatia in a way she thought Mira incapable of.
Carey just looked at her, unreadable.
You’re kidding. Mira met his eyes for as long as she could stand it, then turned her face to the cameras. I don’t think so.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
AFTER THE DECISION WENT AGAINST him, after the tense voices in the hearing room, after Mira avoided his gaze and Roz sought it, after Wandasdaughter requested a review, and after Hypatia made him promise to meet her later that evening, Carey left. A constable and a social worker accompanied him to his apartment to surrender Val. Carey felt a little outside himself as they descended the elevator. Rather than the outcome, or even how Val would react, he was thinking of how angry Mira must be at him to make her lie like that.
To avoid any people who might be gathered outside the tower, they went down to the metro station and took the train to his apartment. All the way, camera midges followed them, into the train, out of the train, getting it all down, until the annoyed constable hauled out her aerosol, sprayed them, and the devices fell dead to the pavement.
In his neighborhood people in the concourses shouted encouragement, catcalled, or simply watched them pass by. At his apartment the constable, aided by her senior who was already there, parted the people who had gathered before his door. Carey stopped at the threshold.
The senior constable looked familiar. He had slept with her at some point. What was her name? Abidemi—Abidemi Bethsdaughter.
“I’d like to have a few minutes alone with Val,” Carey said. “I promise we won’t be long.”
The social worker didn’t want to let him go, but Bethsdaughter said, “All right.”
Carey found Val sitting on the bed in his room.
“Did you watch?” Carey asked.
“It’s not fair,” Val said. “They don’t care what I want.”
Carey sat down next to him. “The court officer is outside.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with BYD.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t prove a negative.”
Val got up and paced. Carey should have confronted him long before about where he had been on that afternoon. He should have done a lot of things.
“Calm down, Val. It’s not going to be any different than the way you’ve lived your whole life so far. You can’t change this.”
“But I can! Mira didn’t do it. It was me and Dora and Mike Kristasson.”
Carey shook his head. “You know how wrong that was, don’t you?”
Val eyed him sullenly. “I don’t need to be protected.”
“If you keep doing things like that, no one can—or should—protect you. But telling them you were involved won’t keep you with me—they’ll say it proves that I don’t have you under control.”
“I don’t want to be under control! That’s all we are here—you, too! Any real masculinity scares them to death.”
Where had he picked up such tripe? “Look, I know you’re angry; you want to prove you’re not anyone’s child. But what you’re doing is childish. Just stop it.”
“We could run away.”
“Please sit down.”
Val sat. Carey felt an unfamiliar tightness in his chest. He hugged his son. Val stiffened at first in Carey’s arms, then relaxed. After a moment, Carey ended the embrace and held Val by the shoulders. “I’ll always be your father. Nothing can break that, unless we break it ourselves. I need you to help me. I need you to go.”
Val pushed away. “All right, I’ll go.” He looked at his hands for a moment. “Can I pack?”
“A couple of things. Be quick.” Carey stretched, rubbing the small of his back. “Don’t say a word about BYD, not even to Roz.”
“Mira must really hate us, to lie like that.”
“Just promise me you won’t ever do such a thing again.”
Val kept shoving clothes into a bag, all sullen distance.
“All right, no promises, not yet,�
� Carey said. “But no talking either. If Mira wants people to think she did it, let her deal with the consequences.”
A knock on the door.
Val shifted the bag onto his shoulder. “Will you at least come with me to Roz’s?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Besides, I have to work today.” Carey steered him out of the bedroom. “We’ll talk.”
He opened the door just as the social worker was about to knock again.
“I’m coming,” Val said to her. He stepped out, and some of the bystanders shouted. The camera midges were back in force, hovering just below the corridor lights. The social worker, a middle-aged woman with a kindly face, laid her hand on Val’s shoulder, and he allowed it. She and Val and the constables moved off through the people.
Carey stepped back into his apartment, closed the door, and slumped against it. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead. After a minute he went into the kitchen, dialed up some tea, and walked around the apartment while it brewed. He couldn’t help but feel some relief, and shame for feeling relief. All the time he had complained about his mother hovering over him, made light of her warnings, teased the Matrons in his book—all that time he’d had no idea what it meant to be responsible for someone else.
He looked around the apartment. The brewer, green light telling him that the tea to lighten his mood was ready, had been given to him. The furniture had been given to him. The room itself had been given to him, by Hypatia. By rights he should be living in a men’s dorm, not in a private apartment with three and a half rooms.
Nobody he worked with in aquaculture had anything like it. The things he had done to earn it did not count for much. How freely they indulged him, how much he deserved their condescension. He was useless.
Sipping the tea, he returned to Val’s room. On the wall stood an action shot of Carey at age fifteen in the bright red hockey sweater of the Cousins team, slashing down the ice, the puck centimeters off the blade of his stick.
He opened a pix window and called Thabo.
“Carey, I’m sorry,” Thabo said.
“Listen, can you meet me at the gym tonight? I need to work out. Maybe we could spar a few rounds. Go to the Men’s House afterward?”
Thabo looked uncomfortable. “Listen, Carey, you know I’d like nothing better. I don’t believe a word Mira said. But the whole family was watching and they’ve been all over me. Can we try in a couple of days?”
Carey watched Thabo squirm. Some seconds passed.
“Sure,” Carey said. “In a couple of days.” He closed the window.
He drained the last of his tea. He could go to the sauna, find a partner, and fuck all night. After returning Val to Roz, Abidemi Bethsdaughter would be off shift. Carey could give her a call.
He turned the pixwall to mirror and examined himself. A handsome, full-grown man. High cheekbones. Blue eyes. If he were to die tonight, what would he leave behind?
Of course, his mother would not let that happen. Val could die, and Mira could die, and pretty much anyone in the Society could die, but not Carey.
He bashed his fist into the pix, pulled it back, punched it again. The image distorted, recovered. He kicked it, he punched it again. He kept hitting, the pain jolting his knuckles, his wrist, all the way up his arm, until finally the wall broke and his image fragmented into a half dozen copies, each complete, each a different size.
He let himself slip to the floor slowly, insubstantial as mist, and cradled his hand in his arms. That was stupid, busting his hand. It was the kind of stupid thing that women of the Society expected even the most civilized of men to do from time to time. It was consistent with somebody who would terrorize the colony. The sort of thing that frustrated men, given the wrong circumstances, did.
He hadn’t ever felt this much alone. It was an interesting place to be, a frightening one. Perhaps liberating as well. If they believed Mira’s story, which he had corroborated to a degree, then he was in great trouble. Investigation might prove him innocent, but if not, he would face serious sanctions, up to and including exile. He had no doubt that, at least for a short time, his celebrity would find him a place in one of the patriarchal colonies. He could get a lot of mileage out of playing the part of the persecuted male Cousin.
But then he’d have to live in one of those colonies, and he didn’t want to. Val was here. Eva was here. Roz was here. Thabo, his friends. His story wasn’t over yet. He wasn’t done with the Society of Cousins.
He sat for some time. He flexed his fingers, testing them, then got up, cleaned his battered knuckles, sprayed on some false skin, and took a painkiller. He’d told Val that he needed to work; he might as well make that true. He pulled on coveralls, went to the aquaculture plant, and put in four hours focused on pH levels and microbial densities.
Jamal and Winston seemed no more happy to see him than Thabo had been to get his call. While Carey worked, his Aide shortstopped half a dozen messages from Hypatia and a query from Sirius, the uplifted canine.
After the shift ended he decided to give in and go to Hypatia’s. At the very least she could suggest ways to negotiate the legal system if it should come to formal charges. He arrived to find her living room full of people. The place felt like one of the parties the martial arts team held after they’d lost a close match. A mosaic of non-Cousins video feeds ran on the wall; in one window a panel of opinionators debated the custody decision.
Carey’s appearance roused everyone’s attention. “At last,” Hypatia said. She embraced him. Others did the same. “Where have you been?”
“I went to work.”
Hypatia kissed his cheek. “I understand.”
“The patriarchs are all on your side,” someone said. “They’re talking about sanctions.”
On the wall were images of Carey in the hearing room, of Val leaving their apartment with the authorities. Endless babble about Mira and her claim that she was Looker, her revelation about Carey and BYD. Speculation about arrests, punishments. Sirius interviewed a series of female Cousins, all of whom expressed satisfaction with the result. Carey could only imagine how a patriarchal audience would eat that up and come back for more.
Half the people in Eva’s living room were lifted, and the air was thick with smoke, hypotheses, and accusations. Cleo said, “Mira was acting strange all yesterday. Who could have gotten to her? How could she do this?”
“Nobody got to her,” said another woman. “She’s always been a loose cannon.”
“Nobody was more anti-Matron than Looker, and now she does their bidding?”
“They’ll make her Invisible,” Daquani said. “They may even exile her.”
“They won’t do a thing,” said Amelie Anitasdaughter. “The Matrons love this story. The prodigal daughter.”
Carey remembered the look on Mira’s face as she’d wrapped up her testimony. She’d managed not to flinch under his betrayed stare for some time before looking away. Her expression he could only describe as one of aggrieved satisfaction. Her tone of voice asserted she was doing what was right, and she was enjoying doing it, but her eyes revealed a well of hurt and something like panic.
Mira might tell herself it was a matter of principle, but Carey knew it was all about the two of them. Her offer of marriage, even if it dismayed him with its condescension and ignorance of what he felt, had been sincere, and he had blown it off. Plus there was something between her and Hypatia. Mira was primed to betray him, and he’d been an idiot not to see it coming.
“The OLS will love this story, too,” said Jon Faruzahsson. “Giving Carey custody would have defused their attacks. Instead they have an object lesson in Matronly arrogance.”
“Nothing will defuse the attacks,” Cleo said. “It’s just a convenient hook to hang their arguments on.”
“The patriarchs paid Mira to be Looker,” said Amelie. “Everyone’s talking about agents provocateurs. She’s perfect.”
“What does Mira know about patriarchs?” Cleo said. “I don’t think s
he had anything to do with BYD. She couldn’t pull that off by herself.”
“But Carey helped her.” Daquani looked at Carey, waiting for a response.
Carey let them talk. He could see how Mira had worked herself into saying what she believed to be the simple truth: He wasn’t capable of fathering. Then in the same moment she’d used the fact that he would put Val’s welfare ahead of his own to take Val from him. Fuck Mira. Even if she was right—and, flexing his damaged knuckles, he knew she was—fuck her three times over.
Mira’s testimony confirmed what the Matrons already believed: Men could not be trusted to respect limits. Even if Carey had proved over and over that he was a good man, according to their definition. A rebel only in the accepted way. Not a warrior—thank god, they thought, he wasn’t that kind of trouble. Just, in the end, one boy among others.
“She couldn’t have done this to you if you hadn’t helped her,” Jon said to Carey. “If you didn’t let her get you on vid. What a fool!”
The talk stopped. All eyes on him, waiting for his reaction. Jon looked momentarily uncertain.
“She was my friend,” Carey said.
Hypatia, who had sat silent while the others ranted, said quietly, “Politics trumps friendship.”
Everyone turned to Hypatia. In the background the voices of the competing broadcasts babbled.
“We’ll use it,” Hypatia said. “Carey becomes a martyr, betrayed by a woman who with the same act betrayed the cause she claimed to believe in. She was one of us, manipulated by Eva Maggiesdaughter in order to regain control of her son. An object lesson in why the status quo must change. Why we need to appeal to the OLS.”
How easily Hypatia accepted the result. How easily she assumed Carey would go along with whatever her next move was.
“No,” Carey said.
On the screen now, Sirius was doing an analysis of the political reaction across the moon. Carey lifted his chin toward the video. “They want to crush the Society. We want to reform it.”