Gaia's Toys

by Rebecca Ore

  Kearney didn’t say anything for a moment. “What did they look like?”

  “Fake businessmen with white eyes. Cables against the eyecovers. Young guy who pretended to be old, pretended to be a sociologist.”

  Kearney said, “O… kay. Yes, we think we know who that might be. Yes, interesting by-catch here.”

  “Kearney, when are you going to pick me up?”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Lawyer named George Reese.”

  “Stay put for a while. We’ve got a few days to check out the boys and set things up. Then Mike and I will come get you. We’ll let you see the bust.”

  “You mean I’m not surrounded by people already.”

  “Allison, you called me.”

  “Yeah, I did. What of it? I couldn’t stand the waiting.”

  “What if you’d really gotten away?”

  “So, did I? I sure didn’t escape a job the orphanage suggested to me.”

  “All that’s important is that you called me.”

  I felt at that point as though I’d been pinned in the searchlight again, stripped naked, grabbed. “You want to hear it? Fine. I’m busted down deep to the bone now. I crave to work for you.”

  “Give me the number where you work. We’ll call you when we’ve set up the hacker raid.”

  “555-6788.” I tried to hang up the phone, but it missed the cradle. I fumbled it back in place, and walked down the street, feeling numb. I doubled back a few times to see if I’d been followed, but they could be working relays on me, one follower per block.

  I’d busted myself.

  “Yesterday, I called my control officers,” I told George and Ethyl as I served the family breakfast.

  “I wish you’d let me do that for you,” George said. “After all, I’m your lawyer.”

  “They’re letting me stay until you find someone else,” I said, not really sure I should tell a lawyer that the Feds planned a lethal bust on the hackers. I looked forward to seeing hacker blood. “Why don’t you go through an agency and get someone legal this time?”

  “I have good instincts for the right people,” Ethyl said.

  I worried that the hackers might run if they noticed my job had come open. They’d never bothered to come after me. I didn’t know whether or not they knew where I worked, if they’d bothered to hack me for that, or if humiliating me once was enough. Maybe the trace scared them off?

  George said, “What did you tell them about me?”

  “I said I was your client.”

  “Military intelligence?”

  “I got routed through Fort Bragg.”

  Ethyl cut through her tofu so fast the fork clicked the plate. Lucinda didn’t say anything, just looked from adult face to adult face.

  The rain seemed unclear as to whether it was heavy mist or falling drops. But then it was like Berkeley to call weather mist, as if admitting it rained as much as it did would dissolve all the metaphysics that held the town together. I called the day rainy when the Reeses let me open the door to Kearney and Mike.

  Mike said, “We brought you a change of clothes. God, that looks like a real human hair wig.”

  “My boss-lady bought it for me.” This was extremely awkward. I felt like I’d been a bad girl and was now sorry. I also felt like a fool. “Come in. The Reeses reprogrammed the house tonight to let in two men if I verify them. House, verify these two men for tonight.”

  The house voice asked them to put their palms against the palm plate. Kearney and Mike did. I wondered if I’d been shifting from foot to foot ever since I answered the door.

  Mike said, “How are you?”

  “You want me to be honest ? Half of me wants to be kicking and screaming.”

  Kearney asked, “Are you sure you want to see us bust them? It will be a replay of what we did to Martin Fox.”

  “Why didn’t Jergen turn me in?”

  Kearney said, “We got his cooperation by letting him leave one person unidentified. He explained a little about you, though.”

  “He nearly got me killed for that favor,” I said.

  Leaving the guys in the living room, I took the clothes into a bathroom and unwrapped a package of subdued natural fibers: tweed suit, long silk undershift, bra, cotton panties, leather shoes with real leather sock linings. The only synthetics of the lot were the pantyhose and raincoat, both of microfiber. No, in the raincoat’s folds, I found a rainhat, also microfiber. Rain-repellent, cloth like a fine poplin with a slightly greasy feel, the coat and hat looked like something Ethyl might wear on an average day out.

  I wondered if the Feds had tracers in these clothes. I laughed out loud. They’d gotten inside my skull.

  The clothes closet trash stayed wadded on the floor while I put the wig back on. Ethyl could deal with the charity rags. Ethyl’s wig I’d keep. Fuck, she bought me the wig. I ought to be more considerate than to leave clothes for her to pick up. I took the second-hand store clothes to the washer. Mike followed me. He said, “We could buy you a new wig.”

  “It looks like a good wig to me.”

  “You don’t have any bad associations with it?”

  “The hackers left me with a twenty-dollar bill and a cheap polyester wig. Ethyl bought me this one.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re good at evasion, but I guess you didn’t know the drode head/hacker problem. We should have taught you more.”

  “What is the problem? Is it like between open-frame cyclists and country dogs, real serious for bike riders, but nobody knows his dog crashes bikes when he’s at work?”

  “Yeah.” If Mike knew that problem, he’d ridden openframed bikes. I could get to like my control.

  “Ready?” Kearney asked. “Realize what we’re going to do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You could stay in the car.”

  “I want to make sure it’s them,” I said.

  Kearney said, “Don’t identify with them.”

  “I’m with you now. I called you, didn’t I?” I was anxious to get this over with. I didn’t want anybody walking around thinking how he’d raped me, how stupid I’d been.

  Mike pulled out a regular FM pocket radio and turned to the Pacifica station. Static noises clued him. “We’re meeting up with the other units in Oakland. They’ve rented a warehouse and are advertising for actors.”

  I wondered how this could be the same hackers, but didn’t ask. Mike said, “This is the Bay Area. Lots of non-working actors are dole people. Or you might say, lots of Bay Area dole people are wannabes of various persuasions.”

  As we got in the car, Kearney said, “I’ve heard they’re thinking of making actors drode heads. They’d get more consistent performances.”

  I said, “Or the studios could just use computer stimulations.”

  Mike said, “Whatever, your hackers find all sorts of ingenious ways to get drode-head women.”

  Kearney said, “We’ve found out how they break the drode locks.”

  I asked, “Do I have drode locks?”

  “You’re a different system entirely,” Kearney said. “If I’d have been them, I’d have run my fake interview and put you back on the street. But hackers are so arrogant.”

  “They did hack your rig in my brain,” I said.

  We pulled up at a warehouse with huge bronze propellers stacked in the yard. Mike said, “If you don’t want to wait in the car, you need a different jacket for this.” He went to the trunk and pulled out a bulletproof jacket with a ceramic heart insert. I hung my suit jacket on a hanger in the backseat and put on the other jacket.

  Kearney said, “You could get hurt.”

  “I know. But I need to see.”

  Mike said, “Point him out to me. I’ll take care of him.” He pulled out a long-barreled pistol with a laser sight. “Everyone will be trying for head shots.”

  I said, “If they know we’re coming tonight.”

  “Hackers don’t hack without body armor,” Kearney said. I’d never heard that. Kill those
hackers before they spew their secrets and mine in public trial. We left the car hidden behind the marine propeller warehouse. Kearney went out first, his coat flapping. Mike watched him, then said, “Let’s go, but we don’t want to catch up with him. Other teams will converge at the site.”

  I wasn’t going to feel clean until I saw the little freak dead. “Mike, I want to get that bastard.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Mike said. If he’d said, kill him because of what he did to you, I’d have felt manipulated and doubly used. Mike would have seemed cheap, but the way he said what he did seemed almost like I’ll kill him cleanly. You’d torture him.

  Mike stopped and hugged me, reminding me bitterly of how eco-warriors hugged before and after monkey-wrenching. He checked his watch. We stayed plastered body to body for a few moments longer, then he said, “Now,” and we ran to a warehouse where men knocked the office door down with a pneumatic sledge.

  The building itself seemed to say, “Everyone on the floor, hands behind your back. Anyone moves, we shoot.” Bam, we were in, running. I smelled medicine in the air, and fuck-or-kill lust hammering in my cunt. Testosterone. Or an analog that worked as an aerosol. The raiders and hackers hammered into violence on testosterone, ignoring surrender.

  Two lights pinned a slight teenager, aging his face with cross-shadows. He looked caught in lust. “That’s him.”

  “Bitch.” The boy fired at me, bullet clanging against the heart shield. I went down, furious and bruised, sliding sideways to get my head under cover. But even laser sights need steady hands, and the boy couldn’t paint a point. Mike lifted his gun slowly, moving his own light dot up the boy’s body. At the throat, Mike squeezed a redder line from clavicles to jawbone, skipped, and finished with a shot between the eyes.

  Kearney brought up a live white-eyed hacker, dressed in black, fake bohemian this time, not businessman. The hacker was crying. He looked all of eleven.

  Mike said, “If it’s okay with you, Allison, we’d like to see if this one will tell us how they did what they did.”

  I said, “Are the others all dead?” The rest of our team went through the bodies on the floor, cuffing them all with disposable cuffs. The surviving drode heads could go home. “How many other hackers were here?”

  “We got five.”

  “I don’t remember more than four, counting the fake doctor.” I walked over to the fake Dr. Karen’s body and rolled it over with my new real leather shoes. Yes. I looked at Mike. He’d killed for me. Yes.

  The baby hacker said, “I’d just joined them.”

  Kearney said, “I don’t think he’s old enough to rape, either.”

  I started to kneel by Karen’s body, but Mike came over and stopped me. “It’s done. Are you hurt?”

  “Bruised,” I said. I kept thinking, killed rapist. I knew he hadn’t done it for me. In fact, if I looked at the incident more callously, he’d done it to me. But my ovaries were thrilled. Mike killed my rapist.

  As we walked back to the car, I asked Mike, “Will you turn the baby hacker the way you turned me?”

  Mike said, “It was an emotional night, wasn’t it?”

  “Logically…” I couldn’t tell him that emotionally, I felt like part of the team now: Kearney, Mike, me, bonded by revenge killing. They’d got Martin Fox, now my rapist. But logically, I was still someone they’d turned, not someone who’d grown up on their team.

  I also realized I was more bruised than I thought I was. “Oh, man, he got me over the ceramic shield.” We sat in the car, waiting for Kearney. About fifteen minutes later, he climbed in the driver’s seat and said, “Allison, you okay?”

  “Bruised.”

  “You want us to stop at a hospital? You could have broken ribs.”

  “I just want to sleep for a few days.”

  “Mike, look at her when we get to the hotel. Let me know if we need a medic.”

  We had a suite at the hotel, two bedrooms. Mike took me into one with twin beds, eased my flak jacket off with trembling hands, then helped me pull the shift off. I couldn’t raise my arms over my head.

  The bra opened in front. Mike touched gently, pressing. “Maybe a rib’s broken, but you’re not concave. Your breasts cushioned the blow.”

  I laughed through the incredible sexual tension. “What do you recommend?”

  “We’ll take a few days off, maybe go to the Sierras. As your control officer, I recommend light hiking at first, then maybe some boulder problems to get your pecs back.”

  “Yeah, I rock-climb a little,” I said. I loved to see guys climbing, their fannies bunching, thighs sweaty, hands white with chalk dust, their vulnerability when they got themselves in danger.

  He fastened my bra back up and helped me into a shift. “I’ll get you an ice pack.”

  “I’m tired enough to fall asleep through the pain.”

  “You’ll wake up fast enough if you try to roll on your side,” he said. He took a cover off the other bed and covered me, then turned off the lights and left me alone in the bedroom.

  For a few moments, I lay under the covers, listening to Kearney’s voice and Mike’s. Their murmurs made me feel safe enough to fall asleep.

  In the morning, I stood minutes under a hot shower, feeling clean for the first time in months. When I came back in the bedroom, I found an open suitcase on my bed. “Do you need help?” Mike asked beyond the door.

  “I’ll manage.” I pulled on a sport bra, then found a blouse that unbuttoned down the front, then pants and silk socks. Moving around loosened up the stiff muscles.

  When I came out of the bedroom, Mike handed me an aspirin and a glass of orange juice. Kearney sat in a chair, staring out the window at Coit Tower.

  I said, “I guess I’m a sucker for getting rescued.”

  Kearney turned and looked at me. His lips flattened, pulled back. A smile? A grimace? Don’t you like working with me, Kearney?

  Mike put his hand on my shoulder and turned me toward breakfast. “You look so much more relaxed,” he said, lifting metal hoods off plates of eggs, sausage, tofu, hashbrowns, and rice and corn porridges.

  “I don’t feel like a prisoner now,” I said, but that wasn’t entirely true.

  Kearney said, “He’s right. You do seem more relaxed.”

  I said, “I didn’t make contact with anyone in the ecology movement, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  Kearney came over to join us, making a plate for himself from the egg and sausage dishes. He said, “Allison, what happens if someone else rescues you sometime later? Would you just go along with them, find yet another cause?”

  Shit. I knew I wasn’t gutless, but didn’t I have principles? “Kearney, aren’t we making common cause against someone who’s screwing up the environment?”

  Kearney said, “Allison, if we had more time, I’d try to teach you patience, consistency.”

  I said, “Kearney, you might be right. Maybe I like to do things with a gang, find a social context for being outrageous. But I called you. You brought Mike. Mike killed my rapist. If I wanted to be paranoid, I’d wonder if you set me up for rape, but nobody volunteers to get gunned down to impress a defector. So don’t get paranoid about me, okay?”

  “You didn’t defect,” Kearney said.

  I looked at Mike as though he’d defend me. He kept eating as though he hadn’t heard a word. “What is the point of making me feel shitty about myself?”

  “Are you really with us now? At least for this operation?” Kearney asked.

  “Yes, I want to get the freak who sends out brainflattening mantises.”

  Mike said, “Kearney, we do deserve a few days’ leave.”

  Kearney nodded. I ladled myself a bowl of corn porridge and crumbled a sausage link into it. I tried not to cry, didn’t even understand precisely why my eyes were tearing up.

  Mike looked at me, looked at Kearney. Mike said, “She’s okay.”

  I said, “Don’t leave me out.” Hardly my own voice, too soft, too high-pitched. Co
ming out like my mother’s voice shocked me, and the tears just rolled. Mike put his left hand over his mouth, thumb against his nose, fingers curled down over the right lip comer, and looked at me. He looked at Kearney. I wouldn’t look at Kearney. I said, my voice again too soft, “I want… I wish…”

  Mike said, “Go ahead and cry, Allison. It has been rough.”

  I ran into the bedroom and cried until I gagged on my tears. Mike came in and patted my back. I said, in my normal voice, “God, I’m embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Kearney doesn’t trust me.” I felt tears rising again. Utterly disgusting if I cried because Kearney didn’t trust me.

  Mike stopped patting my back for a few beats, then began again. “Kearney doesn’t like running breakaway tests. But you did call us.”

  I rolled over, my tear ducts finally under control. “Oo-u, my bullet bruise.”

  Kearney came to the door, leaned against the door frame. “Is she okay?”

  “Ask me, Kearney. I can talk.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am okay. I got away from you and I came back, didn’t I?”

  He clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth, then looked at Mike. I got up and washed my face with cold water, made wads of wet toilet paper to put over my eyes when I lay back down. I said, “I supposed you had some nanomachine in me that would bring me down with excruciating pain if I hadn’t called in another month.”

  Mike said, “All that really matters is that you came back to us of your own free will.”

  Kearney said, “I’m going to arrange our leave. How well do you climb, Allison?”

  “When I was in shape, low Class Fives. I don’t know what I’m going to be like now. Prison stole my form.”

  Kearney said, “Oh, I don’t think so, Allison. I’ll book us time on a Yosemite climbing wall.” He picked up a phone and called Bass.

  I said, “Yosemite’s going to be ice-climbs only this time of the year. Or cross-country skiing.” My bruised muscles couldn’t take that.

  Kearney said to the phone, “What climbs are available in Yosemite tomorrow through the next week?”