The Coward's Option

by Adam-Troy Castro

  I hope you’ll forgive me for this, and I want you to know that I regret any disappointment you might feel in me.

  Yours in friendship, Andrea

  She read the document three times before confirming that she had done the best she possibly could with it, then shuddered and forwarded the text to the Ambassador.

  It wasn’t long before she got the return message that Pendrake wanted to see her, shuddered again, and smoothed out her black suit before traversing the three short hallways to Pendrake’s office.

  Pendrake was not dressed formally this time, but was instead wearing the sweaty workout gear indicating a recent session with the simulated boxer. The text of the missive to Bringen hung transparent above her desk, glowing green everywhere she’d highlighted a phrase for special consideration. Emerald highlights shone in the sweat on her cheeks.

  She said, “What the hell is this?”

  Cort said, “It’s my letter to New London.”

  “I can see that, Andrea. I just read the damn thing. I’m just wondering if you think I’m stupid.”

  Cort wanted to tell the woman that the answer was yes, that in her estimation she was stupid, that it might have been a form of stupidity that went along with cunning but it was still a bone-dense, opaque blindness that limited her concerns to her own personal ambition and relegated everything else to mere annoyance. She also wanted to leap over the desk and teach this creature. so addicted to unfairness that she limited even her simulated fights with constructs prevented from fighting back, what it meant to anger someone who, unlike her, had more than once needed to actually fight for her life. But she did neither. Instead she said nothing.

  “You must think I’m stupid,” Pendrake said, “because you treat me like I’m stupid.”

  Cort wanted to say that of course she treated Pendrake like she was stupid, because in any sane and ordered universe it was the way Pendrake would always be treated. She wanted to say that if it was up to her Pendrake would have been strapped down and forced to endure having the word Stupid carved into her forehead with a dull knife. She wanted to say that if it was up to her she would have held the blade herself. But she did not do that. Instead she said nothing.

  “I’ve experienced your way of speaking to people first-hand,” said Pendrake. “Why would you think me capable of believing that this warm and polite note accurately reflects the kind of communication somebody like you would ever have with anybody responsible for giving you orders?”

  Cort wanted to say that not everybody she dealt with was garbage in human form, and that she respected Artis Bringen quite well, thank you, but that would have been a lie and the words that came out of her mouth were, “It’s the way I talk to people now, Ambassador.”

  “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? It doesn’t sound anything like you.”

  Die screaming. “No.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” the ambassador said. She went to her cabinet and removed the familiar, now-hated, bottle of orange liquid, squeezing four drops into a glass. “Drink.”

  No, damn you. I won’t.

  She drank. Again she felt that burning rush, and again the subsequent the warmth flooded her, banishing all the despair of the last few days and filling her heart and lungs with a pleasure she had already begun to crave to a degree that horrified her. For seconds that seemed to last hours everything was all right in the world. Under the influence, even the state of terror she’d lived in for days now was comforting: for what is more promising, really, than freedom from having to make decisions?

  Then the pleasure ebbed and she was once again returned, with a thud of despair, to the cruel reality of imprisonment.

  Pendrake’s smile was kind. “It’s really that simple. Life is punishment and reward. Sometimes both punishment and reward, at the same time. It’s reward, now, because it’s all you have. It’s punishment because you know that if you taste it too often, you will lose even more of yourself than you’ve already lost. Too much reward and punishment is no longer a threat; too much punishment and no amount of reward is ever solace. But when reward is a punishment: that’s about as eloquent a subsidiary behavior-modification a system as anyone could want. You’re afraid of being given more, aren’t you?”

  I’ll kill you blind you burn you to ashes.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, you know what to do. Tonight you’ll rewrite that letter, editing out the warmth so it sounds a little more like you. And then tomorrow morning you’ll come back to me and we’ll have another strategy session. Okay?”

  If I could kill you now I’d—

  “Okay.”

  “Good girl. And while I’m at it, make yourself more evident at mealtimes. The recluse thing isn’t quite working for me. It makes you too mysterious, encourages the asking of questions. Be more sociable. That’s an order.”

  Cort nodded and even found her lips curving into an unwanted pleasant smile before she turned her back and began the long walk back to her quarters, somehow a greater distance even though it was not far enough, would not be far enough even if it encompassed the gulf between here and the very edge of Confederate Space.

  Every step was a futile exercise in hammering away at her personal walls. She could not stop focusing all the hatred she had, which was considerable, at the priorities that drove her meek return to the little room where all her energies would be kept focused on following orders. Rebellion was built into her. It was who she was. It also wasn’t what currently drove the body she inhabited, the body that she was imprisoned in. That was another mind, one she couldn’t access.

  There was, she’d found, no moment of the day she wasn’t aware of it. Even when the neutered copy that drove her chose to do what she would have done anyway, the steps she took, the gestures she made, the words she spoke, were not hers. They were actions that paralleled hers, rendered maddening by the subtle yet tangible disconnect between her will and the acts that will directed by could not affect. That was not her rolling over in bed; that was not her taking an early-morning trip to the bathroom; that was not her swallowing after her mouthful of food had been chewed the preferred number of times. That was a being who lived parallel to her, a being who happened to want to do many of the same things but was not a reflection of her own volition, a being who was Andrea Cort without any of the things that made Andrea Cort.

  Cort had come to realize that even her few pathetic attempts at rebellion, like the uncharacteristic tone of her missive to Artis Bringen, were not her. They were that other controlling version of her, having the same idea she had but not finding any particular reason to differ with it.

  Pendrake had picked up on this at once and had wasted no time turning to the reward/punishment of the orange narcotic to discourage the controlling mind from taking steps even as miniscule at that. It was, like Andrea herself, a fast learner. It wasn’t stupid. It would give up before long.

  She returned to her quarters, closed the door behind her, and lay on the bed fully clothed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  Returning to her room wasn’t rebellion. She’d been ordered to.

  Lying on her back wasn’t rebellion. Pendrake had said tonight and this was still local afternoon. As long as it got done by tomorrow the controlling mind had no problem with her following her moods.

  Furious concentration wasn’t rebellion. It didn’t affect her actions. It was also the only weapon she had, even if it also turned out to be the reason why the Caith treatment was indeed what she’d suspected, not a humane alternative but an even more vicious punishment, the vicious internal torment that now threatened to damn her to hell throughout the rest of her days.

  All she could do was think. And so she thought, hating that the only place her concentration took her was the same path she’d already traveled half a dozen times, since waking up in the Caith facility with her will stolen from her.

  Pendrake, she’d realized, might not have had the idea right away.

  Upon being confronted with t
he truth, Pendrake might have seen the very same problems with the Cort herself did. She might have indeed agreed with her that it had to be kept out of human hands, even at the cost of her career.

  Even when she brought out that orange intoxicant, she may have meant it as nothing more than she represented it as being, a sacrament to lubricate the agreement between two conspirators.

  But then Cort had left her office, agreeing that the problems here were too complex to resolve all at once, putting their next meeting off to the next morning.

  And that most self-involved, angry mediocrity known as Ambassador Virila Pendrake had done something that Cort would have imagined most uncharacteristic of her.

  She had continued thinking.

  She had thought:

  Wait.

  Why do I have to let that bitch destroy my career?

  There’s no reason for that.

  If I get her on my side, I might be able to salvage this.

  And then she had thought:

  Hell, I might be able to do more than salvage this. I might be able to profit from this.

  And then she had thought:

  Humanity’s had any number of other awful methods of controlling people, and survived. If I leave here with their treatment in my possession, I could find somebody willing to buy it. I could sell it for more than anybody could spend in a thousand lifetimes. I could live like a queen. I could be a tycoon, a Bettelhine.

  The worst of the repercussions won’t even be worth worrying about until I’m long gone.

  There would have been some idle, pleasant daydreaming about castles and servants and all the luxuries she could possibly imagine for herself, swelling to suit even more grandiose visions as she lay back in her chair, and teased herself with the possibilities.

  But then, of course, her thoughts had circled back to Cort.

  If only there was some way to stop her.

  Followed by the inevitable thunderbolt:

  Juje. There is.

  She’s a war criminal.

  She’s a killer.

  She’s been written up for insubordination, any number of times.

  She’s practically living under a deferred sentence, even now.

  What would it cost to just incapacitate her in some way and take her to the Caith, with the facts all laid out to support what they would consider a very reasonable request?

  I can take care of her, and Varrick, at the same time.

  In fact, it’ll be downright easy.

  I can imagine it right now.

  I contact the Caith authorities.

  I say, “You can have Varrick. He’s decided to take the sentence of death. He’ll likely panic and change his mind once it starts, but you know it is. All decisions are final.”

  That takes care of that loose end.

  Then I go on to say, “And while you’re at it, you should also take this one. She’s a prime candidate for your treatment. Here’s full documentation. As you can see, she has quite the record. Murder and everything. Made trouble for herself, and for others, wherever she was posted. A genuine danger to the social order. We’ve been wondering what to do about her for years.

  “No, we don’t want to kill her, not exactly, because she is a talented little thing, and those talents are quite useful to us, as long as they’re properly channeled. All we want you to do is make sure that she’s no longer a threat to anybody, ever again. Take her violent tendencies out of the equation. Also make sure she can’t rebel, or disobey direct orders.

  “On whose authority? My authority. You know me. I’m the ranking Dip Corps authority on this planet. You can make me responsible for her. Come on. You’ve seen her records. She deserves this. The only reason we’ve never executed her is that she’s been of use. This way, she can continue to be of use.

  It wouldn’t fool a human. Not most humans. Not most smart humans.

  But it might fool somebody who doesn’t quite know how human beings think, who doesn’t quite know how human society works. The Caith barely tolerate us. They pay as little attention to us as they can get away with.

  They can be manipulated into doing what I want.

  Andrea’s heart hammered hard as she thought about what had to be Pendrake’s next thought.

  As far as the human reaction: who would even notice? Cort’s a notorious misanthrope. She’s crazy. She has no friends. Nobody’s ever going to say that anything’s out of character for her…especially not if I make sure she transfers to permanent duty, under me.

  She would be the perfect advisor. Brilliant, in her way. Logical.

  Loyal.

  I could be certain that she’d never rob me, or hurt me, or betray me.

  This isn’t a daydream any more. This is a plan.

  Juje. I could do this.

  I should do this.

  It would take care of everything. Varrick. Cort. Keeping a lid on their tech until I work out a way to obtain it for myself and a means of selling it elsewhere, things that Cort will be able to help me with. Not to mention revenge against the insufferable bitch for threatening me: a not inconsiderable reward in and of itself, since if I do this I can make sure she regrets drawing breath every single day for the rest of her life.

  This is perfect.

  This is what I’m going to do.

  And so Pendrake, having talked herself into forsaking whatever moral qualms she might have had, had waited until she could be reasonably certain that Andrea Cort was asleep, made sure she remained out by administering another of what Cort now suspected to be a quite extensive personal collection of recreational narcotics…and taken her. It had been late at night, all the indentures asleep or otherwise retired to their rooms, and so she’d suffered absolutely no difficulty getting Cort down to the skimmer bay unnoticed; no problem leaving with her, unnoticed; no problem leaving her in the skimmer unconscious; no problem, given the minimal Caith sleep schedule, of getting in to see the Xe; no problem having the conversation she had already rehearsed with herself, promising the delivery of Varrick and obtaining the Xe’s order for Cort’s treatment. no problem rendezvousing with the redeemer, who had no particular reason to question the dictates of the Xe and the world’s ranking human; no problem standing by as Cort’s personal volition was stolen from her; no problem after that returning to the embassy, a much-changed Andrea Cort in tow, without anybody ever realizing that she and Cort had been gone.

  It was in the returned skimmer that Pendrake administered the counter-active drug that had roused the horrified Cort to a different world, and said:

  You thought you were so smart, you bitch.

  But you made a mistake.

  You assumed you were smarter than me.

  You assumed that just because I’m stuck at a dead-end post, that I live without ambition.

  Neither of those things is true.

  Starting tomorrow, we’re going to start working on that.

  From this day forward, you work for me.

  * * *

  Lying in bed for those afternoon hours, thinking of all the foolish mistakes she had made and all the lost and helpless years that she was about to live because of them, Cort made only four discoveries of note.

  The first was that none of this obsessive circling about events still raw in her memory did her a damned bit of good. It was just self-flagellation, the endless poking at a wound to punish herself with the pain she deserved. It took up time she couldn’t afford and left her, longer than she could bear to think later, in the same trap she’d stumbled into before.

  The second was that, as long as she was alone and nobody could see her, hysterics remained within the options the device making her decisions was willing to duplicate for her. The tears didn’t just fall, they flowed. They burned her cheeks on their way down, endless numbers of them, more than she had managed to release in years; but though she shuddered and sobbed and whispered to herself that she didn’t want to live like this, none of it was at all cathartic. Only the tears, an involuntary function, manage
d to be genuine. Everything else was the transcription, acting for her, doing what it correctly calculated to reflect the real Andrea’s feelings and desires…without ever quite being her; without ever quite accomplishing emotional release. It only added to the torture.

  The third discovery was a corollary to the second. This, she realized, would only get worse. It was built into the treatment. The transcription of her mind had only reflected her state of mind at the moment the copy was made. It would never grow. It would never learn. It would never alter its behavior to reflect changes in her mindset over all the years to come. Even if she was screaming inside, even if she longed for death, even if she went insane, the transcription would remain the same thing it was. The differences between she wanted to do and what the transcription wanted her to do would only get worse, until she became an alien to her own body, a prisoner forced to live out a stranger’s life.

  It would be different, she supposed, had the treatment actually qualified as mind control, had it altered or changed or in some way modified her thinking process. She lived inside her own head and could think of any number of ways where, if that were even possible, she would have not only approved but actively sought out such adjustments. A happiness pill, for instance, would have been nice. But here, the mind she had always lived with still existed, and was just as self-cannibalizing as it always had been. It had just been rendered impotent, an irrelevant ghost shouting at the confines of her skull, with nothing to do but rage as her body’s strings were pulled.

  It was as cruel a punishment as any she had ever encountered, and it was designed to get worse. Someday, she thought, maybe in a year, maybe in ten, I’ll look back on this day and thin I was foolish for imagining this had gotten as bad as it was going to get. Someday I’ll regard this is paradise….even if I’m still capable of thinking, by then. If I’m not a mindless, gibbering madwoman inside.

  The fourth discovery she made was that she didn’t even have the option she had often exercised in life, of being too upset to be hungry.