Gemsigns

by Stephanie Saulter

  ‘What do the police think?’

  ‘They’re worried. They’re particularly worried about this week and the Conference. They think things are escalating fast. They’re dealing with a rise in incidents, but they tell me there’s been an even bigger spike in chatter on the socialstreams. It suggests there are way more than the cops can verify.’

  Eli closed his eyes, swallowed past the knot in his stomach. He’d been commissioned to work quickly, in the hope of outrunning just this sort of backlash. But it was all happening too fast.

  ‘That’ll play right into Bel’Natur’s hands. No wonder Klist was so sure of herself.’

  ‘They’ll get more of a hearing than the public realises, way more than they deserve. The economy’s been flat for a couple of years now. The pension funds are getting desperate: if the gemtechs don’t pick up soon a lot of them will go bust. We hear there’s starting to be a black market, what with all the engineers and technicians who’ve been laid off. The political view is, the gemtechs need to be brought in from the cold.’

  ‘Do the gems understand that?’

  ‘Most of them don’t. They don’t realise how long a year is in politics. But the ones who really engage with us do get it. There was an argument that the gemtechs shouldn’t be allowed at the Conference at all, and they lost that early.’

  ‘So they know they’re up against it.’ Eli sighed, thought about all the ramifications, all the problems. The gems versus the gemtechs in the colosseum of the Conference floor felt like a very unequal contest. ‘I was surprised by their choice of representative. I thought it would be someone with a familiar ability, or at least a less obvious …’ he trailed off, feeling awkward and guilty.

  ‘Disability?’

  ‘Yes. We’re so unused to difference – let alone weakness or illness – since the Syndrome. If it’s a strategy it may backfire.’

  ‘It isn’t and it won’t. Aryel Morningstar is extraordinary. You haven’t met her?’

  Eli shook his head, frowning. ‘No, I’ve just seen her profile on the streams. But that’s one of the things that wasn’t explained. One of many things. Morningstar. I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘No one knows where she’s from, I think not even the other gems. There is no Morningstar Corporation, not that that means much. The gems aren’t keen on using their parent gemtech as a surname, as you know, and there’s nothing now to stop them choosing another. But I asked her about the name once and she said it was given to her.’ Rob shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter. The selection was never in doubt, Aryel’s been their de facto leader ever since they began to colonise the Squats. And despite her appearance, she is the exception to what I was saying before. She’s very easy to be around, she understands the issues incredibly well, she’s smart, she’s charming, she’s very well educated—’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Very seriously. She can quote Shakespeare by the sonnet, she’ll go toe to toe with you on Darwin, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew how to write computer code and wrangle particle physics. Someone gave her a proper classical education.’

  ‘For what?’ Eli rolled his eyes. ‘You know what I mean. It makes for a nice change, but what’s her ability?’

  ‘I don’t think she has one. There was a rumour making the rounds at one point that she wasn’t a gem at all, that her deformity was faked, but that died away pretty quickly. Everyone started grabbing water glasses after meetings for DNA analysis and ended up proving themselves wrong. I heard her genome looks like nothing on earth, the technicians couldn’t make head or tail of it.’ Rob sighed. ‘The prevailing theory now is that she must have come out of one of the black-ops bionics trials, and we know what a disaster they were. It would explain why she doesn’t show up on any of the gemtech datastreams, and why she avoids bioscanners. She says they don’t get along well with the way she’s made up.’

  ‘She must have had to go through some.’

  ‘Not necessarily. The compulsory high-res scans are mostly at major transit points.’ He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, roughly in the direction of the train station now far behind them. ‘She got issued her papers here in London, so presumably she’s been here all along, or was brought in under gemtech licence before the Declaration. There are the usual Remnant mutterings, of course, but I can’t see it in her case. They’re too far away, and you couldn’t imagine her pulling off any kind of daring escape.’

  ‘What about within the city? She must have to travel around a lot. Meeting with you for one thing.’

  ‘Public buildings are low-res and optional, as long as you go through the hazmat sniffers. I’m told that whenever they’ve given her a hard time about skipping the visuals, neither the machines nor the people could make sense of what they were seeing anyway. Too much distortion.’

  ‘And she never uncovers herself?’

  ‘Never ever. I mean, would you? Poor soul.’ Rob sighed again, heavily. ‘All she’ll say is that she was a failed experiment.’

  ‘Well, she’s got company there.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Rob was back to looking out of the window. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t been in touch with you. The gems are as anxious about the report as the gemtechs.’

  ‘That’s occurred to me too. But she hasn’t.’

  ‘I know she’d like to meet you.’

  Eli stared at him.

  ‘She mentioned it a week or so ago. I thought it was her way of letting me know in advance she was going to make contact – it’s important to her that the gems aren’t thought of as underhanded. But now I think—’ Rob threw back his head and laughed. ‘Blimey, she’s clever, she is. Now I think she said it so I’d repeat it, so in effect the only person it’s coming from is me.’

  Eli chuckled appreciatively. ‘Very subtle. And your recommendation?’

  ‘Is that you should do as you think best, of course. However if I were asked to comment in my official capacity, I would have to say that given the grossly inappropriate overtures you’ve had from the gemtechs, it would only be fair for you to give equal time to the other side.’

  4

  Zavcka Klist walked the perimeter of Bel’Natur corporate headquarters, footsteps echoing between hard floors and high ceilings. To her left a gently curving glass wall allowed a panoramic view of the city below, five centuries’ worth of architectural styles punctuated here and there by clumps of green, and, in the middle distance, the grey glint of the river. On her right the wall consisted of a massive, intricately grained wooden panel that precisely paralleled the arc of glass. There were no breaks or joins in the wood except at the four doors, spaced evenly around the circular tower, that gave access into the heart of the executive suite.

  She could have gone directly there, along a plushly carpeted corridor that ran from the lift to the boardroom, but she preferred this route with all its reminders. She had a theory that their current challenges might have been avoided had her associates made a habit of pacing out the circumference of their citadel.

  She paused by one of the doors, looking south towards the river. Her view was interrupted by another skyscraper, a steel-coloured splinter that sprang up from a traffic-encircled plinth to which several roads ran. She could see tiny figures congregating on a terrace near the top of the structure, shielded from the wind by huge fins that projected out along the lines of the building. Beyond it and at the very limits of her vision, there was a finger-like smudge of green where a century of human abandonment had allowed trees to march down one of the tributaries of the Thames, terminating in an encampment where the smaller river emptied into the large one. Closer but partly obscured, the brown lumps of the Squats clustered like carbuncles on the riverbank.

  Zavcka headed inside, bypassing her own office. She stopped at another door, pressed a forefinger to an identipad set into more unbroken wood panelling, spoke her name and stepped through the door as it hissed open.

  The man in the room was standing at an antique glass-and-chrome bar cabinet,
pouring amber liquid into a goblet. He raised the bottle at her with a questioning look. She shook her head, seated herself in one of the baby-soft leather armchairs arranged around a small conference table. The man joined her and she cocked an eyebrow at the glass.

  ‘Bit early.’

  ‘I’ll take a scrubber later.’ Felix Carrington sipped his drink and regarded her over the rim of the glass. ‘I hope your morning went better than mine.’

  ‘It went as expected. I’ve given him the report.’

  ‘He’ll have seen similar stuff before.’

  ‘Not quite like this.’

  Felix nodded, let it go. He always felt just slightly offbalance around Zavcka Klist. He knew that she could have manoeuvred her way into the top job several times over the past few years, and for reasons known only to herself had chosen not to. Instead she had supported him, first to get the post and then to keep it in the face of the bitter recriminations that had surrounded the Declaration.

  She had been among the first to see, several years ago now, where the growing calls for review of the industry could lead. When her warnings went unheeded she had declined to wage the internal war which would have forced the issue and probably delivered her his job, and instead had changed tactics, knocking heads and twisting arms to get more resources pumped into the agricultural and forestry divisions. Those who had derided her for doomsaying joked that she had become more interested in making paste than mining diamonds, even as her profits soared.

  Then the bottom had fallen out of human gemtech, and no one was laughing any more. Bel’Natur had long-term contracts in cows, corn and coppices, and better cash flow than any of its rivals. In that moment she had become the authority on how to predict, survive and recover from disaster. Now when she proposed a course of action no one argued. He was uncomfortably aware that to a great extent the future of the firm – both its reputation and its riches – depended on the success of her scheme.

  She was looking at him with a smile somewhere between affinity and amusement.

  ‘What’s got you so cross?’

  ‘Conference details. You won’t believe how many gems they’re letting in. I’m going to have to sit on a panel with that … troll.’

  Zavcka had got hold of a draft and committed the delegates and programme to memory days before. She had also briefed Felix repeatedly on the threat posed by Aryel Morningstar. She mentally counted to ten.

  ‘Felix, you have got to start taking her seriously. She’s not there as a token and she’s not a lightweight. They like her. She arouses their sympathy. You have to appear to share that, or this isn’t going to work.’

  ‘I still think it would be simpler if you were the one up there. It’s your proposal after all, you know it inside out. You’re better at dealing with them than I am. And,’ with a burst of hearty generosity, ‘if it works you should get the credit.’

  And the blame if it doesn’t.

  But she was shaking her head. ‘We’ve been over this. It has to come from the most senior source, the CEO of Bel’Natur. Anything else will look less than fully committed. I’ll be there to back you up, you can throw anything difficult to me and I’ll handle it. But it has to be fronted by you.’

  He glared at her and nodded sharply, tossing back the last of the drink and swallowing down a surge of anger with it. You can throw anything difficult to me, I’ll handle it. As though he would be less capable than her. Even though he had just suggested as much himself, it piqued him that she should so easily assume a greater level of competence.

  ‘It’s going to be a tough sell if the damn gems don’t cooperate.’

  ‘They will.’

  ‘So the rest of the plan is …?’

  ‘Already under way.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s necessary?’

  ‘The correct incentives need to be in place, Felix.’

  He nodded again, his stomach sinking as it always did when he tried to trip her up in some detail of her meticulous planning. The woman was infuriatingly efficient. He ran through a mental list of projects and priorities that she was responsible for, noting with irritation that it was both long and remarkably well in hand. Near the bottom he found something.

  ‘While we’re on the subject – sort of – any word on that prototype?’

  ‘No. We’re still looking for Henderson, along with the police, NSPCC and every investigative journalist in Europe.’

  ‘If the press get wind of it …’

  ‘There’s a good chance Henderson’s sold or cached it by now. The question is where.’

  ‘I can’t believe we had our hands on something like that and just let it slip away.’

  ‘The priority then was crisis management; we had to cauterise all links to Henderson and the lab. The timing was just bad luck. Nobody knew the Declaration was coming. And you have to remember, Felix, that if we’d been associated with Henderson the reputational damage would have been catastrophic.’

  He nodded, knowing this was true. Henderson’s methods were questionable, even though his results were excellent. Still, the media had made an inordinate amount of fuss.

  ‘And we still have no idea where it came from?’

  She frowned. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say we have no idea. Henderson’s report suggested two possibilities; it’s just that, as he noted himself, neither of them is particularly plausible. Either some obscure firm, which we haven’t been able to identify, managed to generate a supposedly impossible ability and disguise the engineering and lose the sample—’

  ‘That’s what the quote-unquote parents said, isn’t it? Before they scarpered.’

  ‘Yes, although they had no satisfactory explanation for how they came to be implanted with it. But the other possibility is even less likely. Henderson dismissed it out of hand.’

  ‘Wasn’t worth mentioning, then or now. But they must have known more than they said, seeing as they were the donors. Maybe they had a deal with one of the smaller firms that went out of business early.’

  Zavcka refrained from pointing out the holes in this theory. ‘As I said, neither explanation is satisfactory, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. The priority is locating the prototype. If Henderson’s sold it on I should pick up some industry chatter eventually. But he wouldn’t have got top value for it, not then. I think it’s more likely he’s taken it underground.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got to find it. The potential is huge, especially if this plan of yours works.’

  Yes, she thought. The potential for complete fucking disaster is monumental.

  Aloud she said, ‘I know. I’ve got searches running on the streams as well as in the field.’

  ‘Is anyone else looking?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem so. Which is comforting, means they haven’t got wind of it.’

  He nodded a grudging acknowledgement and suppressed the urge to pour another drink. The one he’d just finished was hitting nicely, smoothing off the edges. He remembered something that just might come as a surprise to Zavcka Klist.

  ‘Back to the Conference. The United Churches are in.’

  They hadn’t been on her draft list, and given her recent forays into the sector she was surprised not to have heard. All Felix got was a raised eyebrow. ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s even odder.’ He allowed himself a little smirk of satisfaction at finally knowing something she didn’t. ‘That Morningstar monster asked for them.’

  *

  On the public terrace of Newhope Tower two men stood hunched against the cold, gazing towards the black glass of the Bel’Natur building. Behind them the meeting was breaking up, the cleric shaking hands and issuing last-minute exhortations to his departing flock. Those who worked in the building headed inside, making for the interior lifts that would redistribute them along the thousand-foot rise of the tower. Others queued for the pair of glass pods that ran down its grey surface to street level. A few wandered over to stand with the waiting men. By the time the cleric joined them, around
a dozen men and women stood in a ring. The chatter hushed as he stepped into the circle, pulling on gloves and looking expectantly from face to face.

  One of the initial pair was the first to speak. ‘Thanks for that, Preacher. Inspirational.’

  His companion added, ‘It’s clearer and clearer. No doubt what’s required.’

  A third: ‘Yeah, there’s been a lot of talk, not enough action.’

  Murmurs of agreement sounded around the circle. Another speaker chimed in, ‘No more standing on the sidelines. They need to hear from us, loud and clear.’

  The murmurs grew louder. A few people clapped. Others joined in. It grew and ran around the circle. The preacher stood nodding his head, letting the applause build, before he raised his hands to quiet them.

  ‘Brothers and sisters, you are the hope and the promise of this cursed age we’re living through. We’ve been given an opportunity here, an opportunity to let our voices be heard, to lift this blight from the lives of decent men and women. The day is almost at hand, my friends, for the instruments of the Lord to reveal His will to the unbelievers and the misbelievers, and the abominations most of all. We must cast out the evil among us, as evil was cast down from Heaven itself. I pray you have the strength and the courage to do what must be done. I will come amongst you again when it is time.’

  He returned their applause with his gloved hands, stepped back from the circle, bowed his head, then turned and walked briskly towards the lifts.

  *

  Gabriel was playing with his blocks, selecting carefully from the brightly coloured shapes spread out around him on the living-room floor. If he got the balance just right the static charge built into the toys held the pieces together and he could branch off his original structure, build twigs and flowers and tendrils. His current creation stretched above his head as he sat on the floor. He chose a blue polygon and added it to a knobby, multicoloured frond that bobbed just at eye level.

  He felt Papa look in on him from the kitchen, nod approvingly and step back to check on something in the oven. He didn’t look up. Papa was really good about letting him be, making sure Gabriel knew he was there but not interfering. They were relaxed with each other. Mama would always ask if he wanted something, get down on the floor to play with him or ruffle his hair as she passed. She worried he might not feel right if she didn’t, but really it was more for her than him. He could feel how happy she got when she held him in her arms, gave him a bath or read him a story. They both took care of him, but her need for it was more urgent and anxious than Papa’s.