by Fonda Lee
“Is that a Sapience thing? To make yourself less recognizable?”
“It helps, I suppose, but … it’s more of a me thing.” She glanced at him with a touch of self-consciousness, then faced forward again and said thoughtfully, “It’s not easy to change most things, but it’s easy to change hair. If it turns out badly, it’s okay, it won’t last long. It can be fixed. If you make yourself look different, sometimes you feel different too—like a better person.” She was pensive for a moment before deliberately lightening her voice. “Or maybe I just haven’t figured out my look. I don’t know … What color do you like?”
Donovan studied her profile. “It doesn’t matter to me. I was only curious.” Quietly, he said, “Thank you. For trusting me, again. You’ve never needed to stick your neck out for me, but you keep doing it. I don’t think you need to change who you are at all. You’re …” Amazing. Beautiful. Perfect the way you are. He wanted to say the truth, not something that might come across as superficial flattery. “You’re one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”
Anya didn’t reply at first. Then she squeezed his hand in gratitude. “Everyone’s got something decent about them, deep down.”
Watching the passing landscape with Anya’s hand in his, the drive did not seem as long as Donovan had feared. City streetlights began appearing and a short while later they were driving onto a university campus, past wide lawns and large, historic-looking brick buildings. “I’ve only been here once. I think we need to go a little farther down this road.” Anya drove slowly, looking from side to side. “All of this was built before the War Era. Kind of amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Donovan agreed. The buildings looming out of the darkness, their facades illuminated by streetlight, seemed stoic and dependable, as if they’d emerged from the earth and rock of this area. They were square and solid. Brick and metal and glass. There were no zhree architectural features, no imported materials or construction methods, no sign of alien influence at all. The place seemed to be a reminder that humans had been studying and building things long before the zhree had arrived. Anya stopped the truck on the side of the road.
“What do we do now?” Donovan asked.
Ahead of them was a road closed off by a simple swinging metal barricade. Anya flashed the pickup’s headlights: once, twice. Then she turned them off and the cab of the truck went dark. “We wait. Outside.”
Anya got out of the pickup truck and walked to stand in front of it. Donovan threw open his own door and followed. “Are you sure about this?” There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight.
Anya sat down patiently on the truck’s front bumper, seemingly unconcerned. “This is why you needed me along. Just trust me.”
No sooner had Anya finished speaking than Donovan spotted a lone figure approaching from the other side of the waist-high metal arm barring the road. Anya got back to her feet. “Stay back here and don’t let him get a look at you.”
Donovan did as she suggested, pulling the hood of his jacket over his head and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He leaned against the front of the truck in a posture of sullen indifference, but his fingers curled, tense, and he breathed steadily to keep his armor down.
Anya walked to meet the stranger at the gate. Donovan heard only the first few seconds of their exchange. A man’s young but cold voice called, “Did you take a wrong turn, miss? Because you look lost.”
Anya’s response was strange. “We are lost to time. Strangers who look upon where we once dwelled exclaim upon a bright burning spark in the black void, the fuel of the flame long gone but the light it gave traveling forever.”
A recitation from The Last Salute, a classic if fatalistic War Era work of literature much admired in Sapience circles. The man at the gate said more warmly, “You’re arriving late. Come a long way?”
Their voices hushed as they conversed. The sentry raised one arm, fingers moving in a hand gesture to someone unseen in the darkness. Donovan glanced around surreptitiously, noting the ample cover of trees and the vantage points afforded by the surrounding buildings. Panotin prickled up his neck. He strained to hear what Anya and the man were saying without looking as if he was doing so. He caught the words Ring Belt, Kevin, Saul, SRP, and Eugene Nakada.
The sentry’s eyes slid past Anya and settled on Donovan. Donovan kept his gaze neutral and wandering somewhere off to the left, as if he were staring into the trees, bored and impatient. He could feel the man’s suspicion raking over him. Anya half-turned, shooting a pointedly concerned and irritated look at Donovan, then sighed and turned back to the man in front of her. “Sorry about my brother,” Donovan heard her say, and then she lowered her voice in a long, intensely whispered explanation.
To Donovan’s surprise, the man nodded. He glanced over at Donovan again, but this time his face showed signs of worry and sympathy. He and Anya talked animatedly for a little longer. Now and again the man paused to point to nearby buildings. Then he unlocked the metal barricade and swung it open. Anya walked back to the truck.
“Come on, let’s go.” She climbed back into the cab.
Donovan didn’t ask questions. He jumped back into the truck and slumped down into the seat as Anya started the pickup again (after only two tries this time) and rolled through the gate, thanking the sentry with a wave as they passed through. Donovan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “We’re okay, then? What did you tell him?”
“That you have a social anxiety disorder. Every time we move SRPs, you freak out and sometimes you get violent. After the bombings, the drugstores were looted and you haven’t had your meds for two days.”
Donovan blinked. “That’s … a good story.”
“A cover story ought to be believable, thorough, and specific,” Anya said, as if sardonically quoting a well-known Sapience maxim.
An ironic smile climbed Donovan’s face. The one other time he and Anya had gone through a road closure together, he’d been the one forced to think quickly on his feet to get past a Builder and his work crew before Kevin resorted to murdering them. “So, what about Nakada?” Donovan asked. “Is he here?”
“He’s here.” Anya took a turn down a smaller road, pulled the truck into a parking lot, and stopped it. She pointed into the distance at what looked like an old mansion. “The official SRP is in one of the residence houses. That’s where people can get food and supplies and a place to sleep.” She pointed at a much larger building across the street. “When I mentioned to Darren back there that I’d worked with Kevin and was hoping to see Eugene again, he told me that the doctor spends almost all his time in the basement of the Biological Sciences Building.”
“That’s where we’ll try first, then.”
They got out of the truck, crossed the street, and hurried down paths across expansive lawns. Donovan had to admit he was impressed. He’d known there were a lot of Sapience camps and militias in this area, but clearly they had powerful sympathizers in the university administration. A Sapience cell hidden in plain sight on a college campus … Commander Tate needs to be told about this. He kicked himself for the thought. He couldn’t report this. Anya had snuck him in here; she was trusting him not to turn around and betray her.
The main entrance of the Biological Sciences Building was locked. They circled the outside and tried other doors. None of them opened, even though there were lights on in the corridors. Donovan tugged at the front entrance in frustration. He considered shooting out the lock but gunfire wouldn’t go unnoticed, especially if Sapience had any sort of active security scanning net that could pick up electripulse discharges. He moved to a ground-level window and began feeling around its perimeter. He bladed his hand and pried at the window frame.
“We can go to the SRP residence house,” Anya suggested. “Maybe Eugene is there and if he’s not, they might have a way to call him.”
Donovan shook his head. Any interaction with Sapience members was further risk they’d be found out. He’d come too far to be th
warted, and with time ticking down, he wasn’t going to leave and hope for better luck later. Donovan armored his left fist, encasing his knuckles, wrist, and forearm in layers of panotin, and slammed it into the window with all his strength. The impact reverberated through his upper body and into his injured right shoulder, making him bite down hard from the sudden pain. The window shook; a spiderweb of cracks appeared in the glass. Donovan waited for an alarm to go off or a guard to appear, but none did.
Anya jumped back as he punched the window again. The cracks multiplied and spread. Donovan shifted back and kicked the window in. The lower pane gave way, the shatterproof glass buckling into chunks. Donovan cleared the pieces away and climbed through the hole. Anya gaped at him, then followed.
They were inside a classroom. Out in the corridor, they followed the partially lit hallway to a set of stairs and took them down into the basement. Doors led into laboratories on both sides. Most of the rooms were dark, but one of them was not. His pulse rising steadily, Donovan followed the light, paused just for a second to hope for the best, then pushed the door open.
Dr. Eugene Nakada was working at a lab bench in the corner of the room, hunched over a microscope and tray of slides. He looked up at the sound of the door opening and froze, the blood draining from his face for one almost comical instant. Then he scrambled back as violently as if a demon had materialized in his lab. Diving for a drawer, he yanked it open, pulled out a revolver, and pointed it at Donovan’s chest. “Don’t come any closer!” he shouted shrilly.
Donovan stepped into the room with his arms outstretched, keeping Anya behind him. “Dr. Nakada, do you remember me?”
Nakada stared at him, the gun in his two-handed grip shaking. Donovan was quite sure that if the man fired it, he would miss even at this close a range. “You’re … you’re Max Russell’s son.” Nakada’s eyes darted past Donovan as if expecting to see more SecPac officers storming down the hallway. Instead, they landed on Anya in bewilderment.
Anya stepped forward. “It’s okay. I brought him here.”
Donovan said, “Put the gun down, Doctor. We came alone. There aren’t any other stripes with me.” When Nakada still didn’t move, Donovan raised his voice and spoke more firmly. “You know that I have an eighth-generation exocel. If I wanted to hurt or arrest you, that revolver wouldn’t stop me. I’m sorry if I scared you, but we need to talk. Please. Put the gun down and I’ll explain everything.”
An hour later, Donovan and Anya stood hovering over Nakada’s shoulder as he studied Dr. Ghosh’s research files on his screen.
“Vincent was an extremely thorough man,” Nakada said with grudging admiration. “Of course, I was aware of the exocel inhibition reflex, but lacking live subjects and advanced imaging equipment, I wasn’t able to pinpoint the neural cluster with such precision.” The doctor sounded a little jealous.
“So is he right?” Donovan asked. “In the letter that he wrote to my father, Ghosh said he thought the reflex could be jammed. You’re looking at his work. Do you think that it could be done?”
“I don’t see why not.” Dr. Nakada tapped two fingers on his chin, a slightly distant but eager expression on his face. He seemed to have recovered completely from his scare. Indeed, after Donovan had shown him the memory discs, Nakada had begun scrutinizing Ghosh’s data with the keen interest of a child immediately distracted from upset by the appearance of candy.
“The procedure is straightforward enough in theory,” the former scientist-in-erze said. “However, as Vincent pointed out, no one has ever attempted it before. To operate on a Hardened patient, one would need exocel suppressing medication, the proper neurosurgical tools, and an advanced knowledge of exo neurophysiology so as not to damage any of the cerebrospinal node connections. In other words, only zhree Nurses would be able to do it, and as you’ve said, they wouldn’t.”
Donovan took a nervous breath and let it out slowly. “But you could do it. You’ve replicated the exocel suppressing drug. You’ve operated on … cadavers. And you’ve spent years studying how Hardening and exocels work. You probably know as much as any human.”
Dr. Nakada gave a modest shrug. “Yes, well, I suppose I would be one of the few capable of accomplishing what Vincent suggests.” The doctor said it casually, but there was a definite hint of self-aggrandizement in his voice. “Assuming his conclusions are correct.”
Donovan nodded. His hands tightened around the edge of a lab bench. “Could you do it on me?”
For the first time in several minutes, Nakada looked up from his screen. He swiveled in his chair and regarded Donovan full on, as if suddenly remembering that he was there: a real, live, Hardened subject with an eighth-generation exocel. “On you,” the doctor said incredulously. “You’re volunteering yourself as a test subject?”
Anya stared at Donovan, her lips parted in a circle of astonishment.
Donovan felt a sudden leap of fear in his stomach. He couldn’t believe what he was doing but words kept coming. “You said it would work in theory, but no one’s tried it yet. Someone has to, right? If the zhree won’t remove the neural override so that exos can fight the Rii, then we have to do it ourselves. Someone has to be the first to prove that Ghosh’s idea works.”
“It might not,” Nakada pointed out.
Donovan swallowed. “Then we have to know that too.”
Nakada pursed his lips thoughtfully, scrutinizing Donovan with far too much scientific curiosity for comfort. “I admit I’m intrigued. This is certainly beyond what any human scientist has ever attempted, and to be able to test it on a live patient …” Dr. Nakada trailed off; then he shook his head and his eyes seemed to clear of their dreaminess. “Ah, but there’s the personal risk to think of. Anything that could aid soldiers-in-erze wouldn’t sit well with my Sapience sponsors. And if something goes wrong, your SecPac friends will be after me as well. I’m afraid I’d be placing myself in a very precarious position.”
Donovan goggled at the man. You think you’re in a precarious position? I’m the one offering to let you muck about in my brain! When he opened his mouth, instead of speaking the retort that was on his mind, he heard himself say, “Tamaravick Kohl is dead.”
“Wh-what … ?” Dr. Nakada drew back.
“She fought the Rii Hunters when they attacked but, like the rest of us, her exocel wasn’t of any help. The Hunters occupied the Towers, including the medical facilities that treat exos. Vic died from her injuries last night.” Just saying the truth out loud was hard; the words made it real all over again. Donovan had to lower his voice to steady it. “I know Vic was your friend, once. I know she went out of erze and betrayed her fellow SecPac officers because she didn’t want to see you hurt or killed. She knew better than anyone what you’d been through and why you left the Round, and I think in a way she even believed in the research you were doing. Vic was …” He swallowed. “She was my friend and one of the most caring people I ever knew, and she’s dead when she shouldn’t be, because of this exocel hobble in our brains.”
“Tamaravick?” Nakada’s chin trembled. “She was just a little girl …”
Donovan shook his head. “She was an exo soldier-in-erze. One of many.”
Nakada’s face sagged and he turned it aside. For the first time, Donovan glimpsed the old and deep chasm of grief hidden below the protective shield of impassive scientific obsession.
He waited until the man brought a wavering gaze back around to him, then said, “The world needs exos that will be able to fight for all of us. I don’t think you left the Round because you wanted to join the Sapience cause. You left because you wanted to do research that the zhree wouldn’t let you do. You wanted knowledge that Hardened humans ought to have but don’t.”
Donovan picked up the screen and thrust it into Nakada’s hands. “Here’s your chance to do what no other scientist has done. I’ve made copies of these files and sent them to the Prime Liaison. If you try the procedure on me and it works, then others will be able to replicate it. O
ther exos won’t die needlessly, the way Vic did. You’ll be giving all of humankind a chance.”
Donovan was keenly aware of Anya’s eyes on him. When he’d been a captive in the Warren, Anya used to stare at him steadily the way she was staring now—eyes wide, mouth slightly parted—fascinated and perplexed and subtly accusing.
Dr. Nakada looked down at the screen in his hand and back up at Donovan. His Adam’s apple bobbed under the thin skin of his neck. “I’ll need a few hours to get set up.”
A few hours was exactly what Donovan didn’t need. It gave him ample time to regret his decision and contemplate the fact that he might have volunteered himself for a fate worse than death. Dr. Nakada’s matter-of-fact explanation of the procedure did not reassure him.
“The neural cluster is located in the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear, aggression, and emotions tied to survival instincts.” Dr. Nakada held up a metal frame. “Once you’re sedated and your exocel has been suppressed, this frame will keep your head immobilized while I drill a one-centimeter hole here.” He tapped a spot on Donovan’s temple. “I’ll insert an electrode deep into the brain and use a radio-frequency pulse to hopefully disable the neural connection.”
“Basically, you’re going to drill into my skull and fry my brain with electricity,” Donovan said. “Great. Sounds simple enough.”
“In a non-Hardened human, yes,” Nakada replied, ignoring Donovan’s sarcasm. “But an exo’s brain is different. There are additional cerebral functions that control the exocellular system. And as with any untested medical procedure, the risks are greater.” Nakada cleared his work table and wiped it down with disinfectant. Donovan refused to think upon the fact that the doctor’s operating surface had previously accommodated the corpses of murder victims. “Death or brain damage are possible. Long term, you might suffer memory or emotional problems.”