Rules of Conflict

by Kristine Smith

“First floor’s the worst,” said a younger man. “Those jassacks with the ram punched through a support wall into the relay station behind and ruptured an air-filter array. Microbial sieve everywhere!” He cracked the tip of a nicstick and passed it to the woman. “The conference-center auditorium looks like the world’s largest strawberry sundae.”

  “There were no fires,” another team member said with a yawn. “Who the hell set off the foam?”

  “Some nutty captain. Her augie went south—guy from Security said she broke into desks and cabinets, found a UV stylus someone had rigged to building frequency.”

  “No one outside Facilities is allowed to have a stylus!” The older woman groaned. “You can reset a whole building with one of those things.”

  “Apparently, some people keep them around as personal environmental adjusters.” The younger man activated a nicstick for himself and turned to look at the SIB, now ablaze with lights and teeming with activity. “When was the last execution we had around here?”

  “Thirty, thirty-five years ago.”

  “Well, there’s going to be one toot sweet when they find whoever the hell that stylus belonged to.” He pulled off his hood and pushed a hand through his matted hair. “Never saw a mess like this in all my life.”

  Sam watched the group smoke in tired silence, then turned his attention back to the still figure standing alone atop a low rise. John Shroud hadn’t moved from his station since the ambulance arrived, a heartbeat behind the fireskims. He’d made no attempt to approach the lone skimgurney that had been pulled from the building, its burden obscured by attached monitors and emergency techs. The sole movement he made had been a clenching of one fist when a monitor alarm blared, causing the level of commotion around the ambulance to escalate accordingly.

  Val Parini, his shirt pulled from his trousers and his jacket long since discarded, broke away from the anthill activity and trudged up the small elevation.

  “How can you just stand up here like a goddamned tree?” He planted himself in Shroud’s path and folded his arms.

  “Because I can’t do any good down there.” Shroud’s voice was level, matter-of-fact. “My years as a trauma man are long behind me. All I’d do is get in their way.”

  Parini hung his head, then dropped his arms and plodded a circle around the other man, finally coming to rest at his side. “A foam-encased mound by the name of Pascal informed me that if Jani dies, Nema is going to pick us off one by one like free range targets.”

  “Let me worry about Nema,” Shroud replied quietly.

  Parini shrugged. Coughed. Sniffed. “John, what the hell did we do?”

  “The best we could at the time.”

  “Did we?” His breathing grew more and more shaky. Then he leaned against Shroud and pressed his face against his chest.

  Shroud placed an arm around his shoulders. He remained quiet, his face like carved stone, and let Parini cry. Then he jostled him gently, the way a father would his son. “Val? Val, pull yourself together.”

  “Yes, John.” Parini pushed back. Ran a hand over his face. Coughed again.

  “Val?”

  “Yes, John.”

  “I’ve spoken with Pimentel. If it looks as though—” Shroud stopped. Closed his eyes. Exhaled with a loud huff. “We stay with her until the end, and we pronounce her. We owe her that much.”

  “Yes, John.” Parini’s eyes squinched like a squawling babe’s. Then he lifted his chin and swallowed hard, his face as masklike as his friend’s.

  All during that time, dark-haired Hugh stood at the base of the rise, watching. Parini beckoned to him as soon as he realized he was there, and the younger man strode briskly up to them.

  “She’s seizing. Your specialist thinks they should perform a DeVries shunt. Her Hybrid Indicator Indices are skied—he’s worried about excitotoxic brain damage.” He tugged at his sweat-soaked shirt. “They need to get her to Cryo.”

  “Those shunts have an astoundingly low success rate—he is aware of that?” Shroud’s voice sounded dull, as if he knew the answer. “Is that the only problem?”

  Hugh hesitated, then shook his head. “Hepatic failure’s imminent. I’m worried whether the adjunct has the capacity to clean her up. Pimentel says they haven’t been able to harvest a viable transplant. Cal Montoya’s searching all Earth facility banks for possibilities, but—” He had already backed halfway down the hill. “I think we better go.”

  “Hugh!” Parini trotted after the man, who didn’t slow or even give any sign that he heard him.

  Shroud remained in place. He watched the crowd disperse and distribute themselves amongst other vehicles as the crew loaded Kilian’s stretcher and closed up the ambulance. His eyes followed it as it fast-floated away, sirens blaring, lights flashing.

  Sam struggled out of the tiny scoot and ran to his side. “What does that mean! What you said?”

  Shroud glanced down at him, a cocked eyebrow the only sign of surprise on his long, monkish face. “Mr. Duong, isn’t it?”

  “What’s the matter with Captain Kilian!”

  “It’s difficult to explain to a layman.”

  Sam dug deep, and came up with his “oral defense committee” voice. “Do. Your. Best.”

  Shroud stared. “My specialist wants to insert devices into Jani’s neck and brain that will bypass her circulatory system and perfuse the brain with a solution that can both nourish it and prevent and repair damage from the seizures she’s having.” He broke eye contact, and focused on the grass at his feet. “But that’s not her only problem. Some foods she’s eaten and drugs she’s taken in the past few weeks have poisoned her, and her liver is failing as a result. The toxic metabolites that have damaged that organ could affect others, as well. We don’t know whether an artificial liver can do the job, and we can’t locate a tissue replacement.”

  “She will die?”

  Shroud stiffened. Then he picked his nails. The steady click click cut the still night like cricket chirps.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Is that any of your business?” Shroud glanced at Sam, and offered a sad smile. The expression erased years, but as with Kilian’s tears, the hint of exposed psyche rattled. “If you must know, I truly believed I was helping her. I was . . . very fond of her, and I wanted her to live forever.” He turned away. Took one unsteady step, then another. Finally, he thumped his thigh with a cage-wire fist and quickened his stride, reaching the last remaining skimmer just as it was about to depart.

  Sam remained atop the little hill and watched the vehicle float away. “No one lives forever, Dr. Shroud.” He walked down the hill toward the SIB. The lawn in front of the building looked like a depot, the fireskims having been joined by a small fleet of empty tankers that had been bought over to “hold the foam.” Activity, while still bustling, had slowed from “what the hell!” to “steady as she goes” as the discovery phase of the cleanup operation gave way to the actual cleaning-up.

  The HazMat crews had disabled the building alarms to allow for the rapid deployment of hoses, suction pumps, and portable ventilators. Sam walked up to the staging area with the sure step of someone who had every reason to be there. He slipped a ventilator helmet over his head, freed a pair of boots and a coverall from the pile of discarded safety equipment, and dressed. He had to fold over the coverall sleeves twice, and the amount of material he had to stuff inside the boots impeded his ability to walk. But even the best-fitting safety gear made people look like they’d dropped a load in their pants, so Sam decided he looked just fine.

  Most of the cleanup centered around the first-floor conference facility. Someone had already tacked up a banner over the doorway leading into the space. Operation Soda Fountain had been crossed out in favor of Operation Scoop, which had in turn been countered by the less poetic, but more apt, Operation Suck. Rows of vacuum pumps already filled the huge rooms with their characteristic spluttery sounds. Sam walked past chest-high dollops of bright pink foam, and felt for one crazy moment l
ike an explorer in a children’s adventure story.

  The stairwell leading into the basement proved gratifyingly empty. He limped down, unable to avoid the sticky, whipped-cream mounds that swallowed his boots to the knee. The hallway itself had avoided a major influx of microbial sieve, although he could easily trace the pink-outlined trails of those who had preceded him.

  The tech bullpen . . . well, shambles seemed appropriate. Sam pushed a mountain of white foam from atop his desk—it flooped to the floor and continued to advance across the lyno like pyroclastic flow. He removed one coated glove, touched open his drawer, and removed the box of shrimp tea Kilian had given him.

  He unfastened the front of the coverall, stuffed the canister inside, closed himself back up. If he stumbled into anyone now, he’d say that he’d come down to recover his mess card, and gladly accept the three-day suspension he’d draw for crossing the hazard line.

  Sam slooshed into the hall. The foam damped out sound—the vacuum noises that had filled his ears in the stairwell proved barely detectable here. So quiet. Like a hospital. He looked in the direction Kilian had disappeared, then slipped through the hip-high layer of fluff.

  On his way down the hall, an opened fire-alarm station caught his attention. Someone had painted a large yellow X over the gaping hole, through which assorted connections could be easily seen. He smiled, thinking of Kilian popping the cover and inserting the stylus. He relished the thought of her creating mayhem. He prayed she would remain alive to make more.

  The vending alcove, the source of so much lousy tea, looked appropriately tatty. The floor was covered with a runny, white-streaked liquid, a blend of foam and . . . what? Sam saw the broken water connections, the spray still covering the furniture and counters, and shook his head.

  “What was she trying to do?” What had happened at Knevçet Shèràa that she thought smashing water valves an appropriate response? Did she try to drown Neumann? The Laumrau? Did she even know what she did?

  He kicked something as he crossed the floor, and bent to retrieve it. A turnstick. The long one Janitorial used when ceiling lights needed switching out. One of the polywood ends was cracked and dented. She used this to smash the valves. His mind plundered the thought. What was she trying to do? He had a right to know. They were in this together, after all.

  Together.

  Sam’s eyes stung. He coughed, as Parini had coughed, to loosen his clenching throat. He leaned on the turnstick like a cane as he walked to the janitor’s closet to return it to its rack.

  Together.

  All these years, he had known, in his bones, that despite all evidence to the contrary, Jani Kilian lived. As proofs of her death cropped up all over the Commonwealth like mushrooms, he treated them as conjecture only. Anecdotal evidence, not even worthy to be dubbed hypothesis. He knew her to be out there, somewhere. He knew that someone else had survived the hell he had lived through. He knew he wasn’t alone.

  He opened the closet door and inserted the turnstick back into its niche. He touched the places where Kilian’s hands might have gripped, and a cry caught in his throat as the first hot tears spilled. He stepped into the closet, inverted the bucket used to catch leaks from the coffee brewer, sat down, and wept.

  He wept for Eva, and for Orton, and the others. But mostly, as much as it shamed him, he wept for himself. This was what it meant, to choose Simyam over Sam. If she dies, I’ll be the only one. The only one left to remember. The only one left to bear the weight.

  She felt like this for years. The thought caught him like a sharp blow. His breath stopped, starting only when he consciously forced himself to pull in the air. She felt like this . . . so alone. The sole survivor.

  He stripped the helmet from his head, let it fall to the floor.

  “I don’t want to be the only one! I don’t want to be the only one!”

  Then he thought of the dying other, and finally wept for Jani Kilian. Wept as Parini and Shroud refused to. Wept as people in HazMat suits splashed into the alcove and stared at him. Wept until Odergaard, much less red of face than he had ever seen him, escorted the two white-garbed men into the storage room and led him away.

  Chapter 33

  Quiet, cool, whiteness. It stretched around Jani for as far as she could see. She slept in it—it nestled her like velvet, soft as the wings of angels. She couldn’t walk in it—when she tried, she sank in to her hips and fell over. But that was all right. She didn’t want to walk anyway.

  Neumann only bothered her once. He sprayed pink foam in all directions as he slopped toward her, his head nestled beneath his good arm. His mouth still worked, unfortunately. She told him to go to hell and he stalked off, muttering about colonial lack of respect for their betters.

  At times, she’d see one in an assortment of faces. Male. Female. Dark. Light. Flashes only, barest traces of variety in an endless sea of white.

  Sound. Her consciousness revolved around sound. It ebbed and flowed like the tide, fingering the white space with swirls of imagined color.

  “—and after Gruppo Helvetica wins the Cup and I take your money, I’m going to—”

  “—and the Lake Michigan Strip talks are still ongoing, but it looks better from our end. The Vynshàrau have backed off, just like you said. They’ve even turned the temperature down! And I spoke with Tsecha last week. Hantìa was with him, and he said, “‘Colonel Frances, you must tell—’”

  “—foam everywhere, and guess who has to work cleanup detail for three fuckin’ weeks because everybody said I should have been watching you—”

  “—so Piers and I are having a little informal contest, to see which one of us has a heart attack first—”

  “—I never stopped loving you. Please come back—”

  “—I’m not mad at you anymore for ditching me in Felix Majora, but you owe me dinner for putting me through hell—”

  Blues. She heard happiness in most of the voices, and happiness touched her as blue. Even the complainer, who muttered about lost gloves and crap in his hair. Granted, at times his voice radiated into violet, with the occasional flash of scarlet. Self-pity, she sensed. Worry, about himself.

  But blues, mostly. All the emotion that touched her came to her in blue.

  Except love. Love was white, like the velvet that enveloped her. She recognized the color of the voice.

  A brick crushed her forehead. Every time she tried to open her eyes, it pressed down more and kept them closed. She raised her arm and tried to push it away, but something wrapped around her wrist and stopped her.

  “L’go.” She tried to pull away, and the grip tightened.

  “Get Shroud.”

  “Roger will have a fit if we don’t call him.”

  “Then get ’em all!”

  Running. Swoosh of a door.

  “Le’ go!”

  “Please don’t struggle, Jani, you’ll pull out your IVs.”

  “Lemme go!”

  The brick smashed down.

  “M’head.”

  “That’s swelling from the shunt, Jani. Your head will ache every time you move it for a few more days.”

  Jani concentrated all her strength and will on forcing apart four parchment-thin flaps of skin. Slits of light. Stabs of pain. She closed them, then tried again.

  Shapes. Surrounding her. Watching her.

  A flash of white. Bending close.

  “Hello.” John’s thin face filled her view. A smile. Light green eyes, the milk skin beneath cobwebby with fine lines.

  “I remember you.” Jani’s words came slow, slurred. Poured, rather than spoken.

  “And well you should.” A last, wider smile. Then nothing.

  “Me next.” Val’s head replaced John’s. New haircut since Felix. Shorter, more Service-like.

  “Cousin Finbar—is it really you?”

  His smile broke like sunrise. It was one of their Rauta Shèràa jokes. He’d probably hurry to the nurses’ station after he left her to jot happy notes about her long-term memory
.

  “Me last.” Scraggly blond hair and bloodshot eyes.

  “Hi, Rog. Consorting with the enemy?”

  Pimentel grinned sadly. “I had no choice. Patient before pride.” Val made soothing noises, but he ignored them.

  “Hmm.” Jani smiled. “Had your heart attack yet?”

  His eyes widened. Twin rounds of pink bloomed in his sunken cheeks. “Not yet. Any minute now, though.” He exhaled with a whoosh. “You remember that?”

  “I remember lots of things.” She turned her head as much as she dared and looked at John, but he pretended to fuss with the IV leads and refused to meet her eye.

  A DeVries shunt, a procedure developed by and named after her least favorite living person in the Commonwealth, had been performed. The exit and entry scars, located at her hairline on either side of the base of her skull, pulled and tingled every time she moved her neck. She had a new liver. It was undersized since they’d been forced to insert it when it was still in its early growth stages, but it would reach full form and function within months. To fill the gap, they’d implanted a partial adjunct to help it along.

  Beyond that, no one would tell her what had happened or what had been wrong with her. Her nurses fobbed her questions off on her doctors, who in turn fobbed her questions off on each other. Pimentel chewed his lip to blood. Val oozed charm and changed the subject. John, she saw not at all. That worried her more than anything else.

  They wouldn’t give her a mirror. She discovered the first time she touched her scalp that they’d shaved her head in order to jack in the shunt main and attach the monitor buttons. She estimated length as best she could with her thumb, and guessed that her new growth consisted of a centimeter of wave. Unaided hair growth averaged fifteen centimeters a year. Hers had been on the slow side since her rebuild. I’ve been out over a month? She checked the color in the curved reflection of her IV stand. Still black. No bald patches requiring implants.

  They’d left her àlérine wounds alone. The gashes had healed to ragged red lines on her right arm, thinner, paler threads on her left.