⚔ ⚛ ⚔
The world had calmed outside, the noise of drones moving off into the distance. The Metatech people were blocks away, completing their sweep. Sporadic gunfire highlighted when they’d encountered resistance. Laia had poked her head in a little while ago, withdrawn again without saying anything.
Mason had felt her presence, a reminder of what had happened and was still to come.
“That’s everything,” said Haraway. “That’s all there is.”
“Not yet,” said Mason.
“What else is there?” She threw up her hands. “You know it all now. You know there’s no going back. You know secrets they don’t want out there.”
Mason nodded, then held up three fingers. “Three questions.”
“Three?”
“Then we’re done.”
“Ok.” She nodded, the gestured tired. “Ok.”
“First. Why doesn’t Apsel say they have gate technology? It’d make millions. Second. Why’d Carter help you? I don’t get it. Third. What were you looking for when you found the… Whatever it’s called. The gate.” Mason frowned. “There. Three questions.”
“They’re good questions,” said Haraway.
“Yes,” said Sadie, from the door. “They’re good questions. I’ve got another one.”
Both Mason and Haraway turned towards her.
“This isn’t for you,” said Haraway. “Get out.”
“I made a promise,” said Sadie. She looked at Mason. “There’s a fourth question. A better question than the rest.”
He looked between her and Haraway. “A promise?”
Sadie shook her head. “Wrong question. The question you want to ask? How do we get those crazy cool kids back home?”
Mason blinked at her. “What?”
“That girl out there has a life, somewhere.” Sadie waved a hand in the air. “I don’t know where the devil gate opens up. But we need to get her home.”
“Home doesn’t sound like a fun place,” said Haraway. “It sounds like it’s worse than here.”
“Maybe,” said Sadie. “Be nice if she had a choice, wouldn’t it? That’s the problem with you company people. You always think you know better. What about letting the kid have a choice?”
Mason watched as Haraway’s frown turned angry. “She’s just a—”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” said Sadie. She turned to Mason. “What about you, soldier boy? You ready to make the right choice?”
“She’s part of the contract,” said Mason. “She’s part of the deal.”
Sadie took a step closer to him. “Is she?”
“Yes, she’s—” Mason stopped. He swallowed. “She’s safer here.”
“Here?” Sadie took another step forward. “Or just with you?”
“What?”
“I get it, Floyd,” she said. Haraway was about to say something, and Sadie threw a glance at the other woman that made her mouth snap shut. “Look, I do. You owe her.”
“Yes,” said Mason. “I owe her my life.”
“You owe her a choice,” said Sadie. “You owe her a life of choice and freedom. She can’t get that as a company asset. You know it. I know it.”
“I know it,” said Mason. “I… I don’t know how else to fix this.”
Sadie laughed. “Oh, Mason. No, I guess you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t have to fix everything,” she said. “This isn’t about you. It’s about her. She needs to have a real choice. She needs to know she can get back to her family.”
Haraway cleared her throat. “This is all very touching, but I’m just going to say what we’re all thinking. This is crazy.”
“How so?” Sadie looked at her, but didn’t move away from Mason.
“Without her, the deal’s off.” Haraway shrugged. “It’s that simple. Metatech laid that out in the contract.”
Mason turned to her. “Why don’t we give them the gate?”
“I tried, Floyd. I tried to sell it. We’re all out of prototypes to sell. The first one, something went wrong. Second one, you tossed a grenade in the crate.” Haraway shrugged. “We’re all out of spare gates.”
“I’d bet we’re not,” said Mason. “I’d bet that Reed picked that gate up and took it back to their lab. Bet they’ve got a hundred R&D drones — no offense — crawling all over it.”
“You think I’m an R&D drone?” Haraway’s voice rose an octave. “A drone?”
“If it helps,” said Sadie, “I think you’re a miserable piece of shit as a human being.”
“What?” Haraway blinked.
“You company people are all the same.” Sadie’s boots stamped across the floor as she walked to the window. “Look out there.”
Haraway didn’t move. “Why?”
“Because there are two young kids out there who are out of fucking options, that’s why,” said Sadie. “I want you to look at them, then throw your hands up and walk away. Because you don’t have a spare gate.”
“We don’t,” said Haraway. “It’s not as simple as ripping open a reactor. The field’s not stable inside. It’s why the tech’s not been stolen yet — there’s always an accident. I’m not making excuses, we—”
“Yeah,” said Mason. “Yeah, we’ve got a gate.”
“What?” Haraway turned away from Sadie to look at Mason. “Where?”
Mason walked towards Haraway. His footsteps were slow. God, but I’m tired. I’m tired of all this shit. He reached out a hand, slow and steady, towards Haraway’s forehead. Her eyes went wide just as his finger tapped her brow.
“No,” she said. “Mason, no. I don’t understand the science—”
“Bullshit,” said Mason. “You understand the science just fine. You’ve opened a gate to another world. Twice.”
“Once,” she said. “The other time—”
“Once,” he said. “It’s one more time than anyone else. You’ve seen what’s inside the box. Make a new one.”
“I’d need something to work from,” she said. “If it was that easy—”
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” said Sadie. “Everything worth doing is hard.” She snorted.
Haraway turned to her. “What? You think you can help with the science?”
“No,” said Sadie.
“Say it,” said Haraway. “I know you want to.”
Sadie shrugged. “It’s just that… Well, shit. I thought you were smart.”
Mason watched as Haraway bunched her fists, taking a step towards Sadie. He thought about stepping in. Decided against it.
Sadie lifted her chin. “Come on, company woman. Give it your best shot. If you can’t use your goddamn brain, why not just punch your way through? It’s what you company people do, isn’t it?”
Haraway stopped. “What did you say?”
“I said—”
“I know what you said,” said Haraway. She turned to Mason. “Before. You said that Reed took the box.”
“Probably,” said Mason. He walked towards the window, looking out. He saw Laia was laughing, running away from Zacharies as he chased her down the street. “Pretty sure.”
“How do you know?” said Sadie.
“It’s what I’d do,” he said. “It’s what any company would do.”
“The parts.” Haraway cleared her throat. “Can you get me that box? Can you get me what they recovered? It might be enough.”
Mason looked back down on the street below. Bust inside Reed? Do an asset extraction from a company HQ? Probably a hundred guys in there. Probably get dead.
The first drops of rain started to fall. Laia stopped laughing, and she and her brother turned up to look at the sky. More rain fell, and off in the distance lightning hammered the earth. A rumble walked soft through the air. You know what comes with the rain.
He turned away from the window. “Yeah. Yeah, I can get you that box.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
He watched as she came out the
door, the rims on the chair brushed chrome. She had fingerless gloves, and his optics picked out the soft touch of her hair on her face. Rain fell, dark spots tapping away at the hoodie she wore, the cotton making her almost shapeless.
She didn’t see him until she was at the turn in the ramp. Her hands froze, holding the rims steady. Her eyes were red. She pulled her hood up, then continued down the ramp.
She’s been crying. Harry looked down at one of his metal hands, the water running off it from the downpour. Lace reached the bottom of the ramp. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Hello, Lace,” he said.
“Fuck you, Harry.”
“Can I walk you home?”
“I thought you’d fucking died. The link went dead, and you vanished off the face of the fucking Earth. Just…” She stopped, a shudder running through her.
He bunched the chassis down low, trying to see her face. “It’s not safe, Lace.”
“It’s never safe!” Her hands gestured at the chair, the movement sharp and angry. “Every day. I’m trapped in this goddamn chair, and it’s never safe. Not anymore. Not since—”
“They’re going to come for you,” said Harry. “They’re going to come for both of us.”
“What? Here?” Lace lifted her head, but the edge of the hood still hid her face from view. “It’s in the middle of Apsel central.”
“No,” said Harry. “It won’t be here. You won’t see them coming.”
Lace sniffed, rubbing a sleeve across her nose. “God. Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d like you to walk me home. It’s just—”
“What?”
“It’s a long way.”
“I’ve got nowhere else to be,” he said. I’ve got no one else I’d rather be with.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
Lace had slaved the chair to GPS, her hands on her lap as it moved silent and quick down the sidewalk. “I can’t get through to Carter.”
“I know,” said Harry. He was using the PA system. Neither of them wanted to trust the link. “She told me.”
“She told you?”
“Not quite,” said Harry. The chassis walked along on the street beside Lace. Traffic was slow out here, the world dark under the rain. “She said—”
“She’s cryptic,” said Lace. “I hate the bitch.”
“You do?”
“No,” said Lace. She was still looking at her hands. “I — no.”
“When they come for us,” said Harry, “I want you to know—”
“She’s not okay,” said Lace. She turned her face towards Harry. “I think she’s in trouble, Harry. Carter? She’s in really big trouble.”
Harry was silent for a moment, and a car honked at him as it drove past. He extended a massive middle finger at it as it sped away. Lightning slashed the sky ahead. “Why… Why do you think that?”
“She cut the link,” said Lace. “When the boss was talking, she cut me off from the link.”
“I know,” said Harry.
“You know?”
“I know,” said Harry. “She told me.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“She told me that they’d be coming for us.”
“She said that?” Lace turned back to her hands. “Man.”
“No,” said Harry. “She didn’t say it. She meant it, though.”
“Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re going to be coming for her too.”
“Maybe,” said Harry. “She’s pretty careful.”
Lace was twisting the hem of her hoodie in her hands, the black of her fingerless gloves dark and wet in the rain. “I… Just before she cut me off. You remember?”
Harry thought back. “I remember.”
“Gairovald said something. Do you know what it was?”
“Not exactly,” said Harry. “He was talking about Reed.”
“Maybe,” said Lace. “I don’t think he was talking about Reed at all.”
“What?”
“Can you access your recording?” Lace looked back up at him, then pointed at the chassis. “Your systems. They record everything you see.”
“Yeah.” Harry flicked up a replay on his overlay, scrubbing back to the hangar.
It was blank.
“It’s blank,” he said. “There’s a chunk of time.”
“How much is blank?” said Lace. “Where does it cut out?”
“Let see. Here we go. Gairovald’s talking. One of his guys is talking. Gairovald’s being an asshole—”
Lace laughed. “You shouldn’t talk like that. Not even out here.”
“I think it’s a bit late for that,” said Harry. “Ok. It cuts out right after Carter says she tries.”
“Right,” said Lace. “Same with me.”
“What?” Harry would have stopped walking if he — if I still had legs. He brushed the thought aside, the chassis stamping its way through the rain. “What do you mean?”
“TacOps records are gone. System’s been scrubbed. So I spent some time looking back over time. You know what else is gone?”
“I know you’re dying to tell me,” said Harry. “Photos of your last birthday?”
“I don’t celebrate birthdays anymore,” she said.
Harry didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Lace looked up. “Sorry. I—”
“It’s ok.” Harry flexed one of his hands, the servos stuttering at the edge of the motion. “I don’t go in for birthdays much anymore either. It’s the cake. Makes my hands sticky. You ever try justifying to a tech how you got pistachio flakes in the gears?”
Lace smiled, but it was tired and faint. “The mission.”
“What mission?”
“When Floyd and Haraway went off-grid?”
“Right. Those assholes had me in high orbit, dropped me in to—”
“Yeah, that one. I took a look at a the feed from Floyd’s overlay.”
“You can do that?”
“No,” said Lace. “But I did it anyway.”
“But—”
“Carter’s not the only one with tricks,” said Lace. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Do I want to know what’s on it?”
“Nothing. That’s what I’m saying. It’s scrubbed.”
“Mason went off-link.” Harry used a big metal hand to tap the face of the chassis. “He dropped comms.”
“That was after,” said Lace. “He didn’t drop comms until well after. They’re covering something up. And I think I know what it is.”
Harry clanked along without saying anything, waiting for Lace to finish.
“Harry? Do you use the world ‘sublime’ a lot?”
“I don’t think so.” Harry swiveled to look at her. “Sublime? No.”
“No one does,” said Lace. “The word stuck with me.”
“Why?”
“I like old music,” said Lace. “There’s this band—”
“Forget I asked,” said Harry. “I hate your music collection.”
“You never complained at the barbecue.”
“I like steak more than I hate your music collection. Liked, anyway. Sublime’s a song?”
“It’s a band,” said Lace. “Long time ago. Haraway used the word in-mission. And Gairovald used it as well, right before comms got dumped.”
“So?”
Lace looked up at him. “Do you know what human coded conditioning is?”
“No clue,” said Harry.
“Right,” said Lace. “Let’s say you have a human, and you crack their head open—”
“Literally? Like literally crack their head open?”
“Maybe,” said Lace. “Could be drugs. Could be we pop the top of your skull off. Might even use the link wetware. It’s wired in pretty deep.”
“Ok,” said Harry.
“We crack their head open, and put in certain words.”
“Like teaching them German?”
“Not even a
little bit like it.” Lace frowned. “I can speak German, learn it easy enough with the link. Takes a few seconds, and bam, I know German.”
“You know German?”
She sighed. “Let’s try again. It’s like using a word or combination of words. Laid out in a certain way. And… They can make you do something.”
“Like what?” Harry stepped around a pile of garbage. “Do your taxes on time?”
“Maybe,” said Lace. “Might also make you do whatever someone wanted. If that’s taxes, fine. What if it’s killing someone, or betraying everyone you’ve ever known?”
Harry stamped on for a moment without speaking. “Carter’s been human, uh, human—”
“Human coded conditioning. Yeah, I think she has.”
“Uh,” said Harry.
“Yeah,” said Lace.
“Uh… Wait. She’s on mission. She’s Mason’s handler.”
“Yeah,” said Lace. She looked at her hands. They were clenched in her lap, the chair pushing her along on silent wheels.
“That means—”
“Yeah,” said Lace. “Carter’s in really, really big trouble.”
“Sure,” said Harry. “What about Mason? And Haraway?”
“I don’t know about Mason,” said Lace. “Seems pretty capable.” She threw him a glance, then looked away.
“It’s ok,” said Harry. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know,” she said, her voice small.
“What about Haraway then?”
“Thing is,” said Lace, “I think Haraway’s a problem.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” said Lace. “Because if I’m right, she used the same goddamn code words.”
“As Gairovald?”
“Same words, Harry. Same words as the boss.”
“Uh,” said Harry.
“Yeah,” said Lace. She looked up at him, her face miserable. “I spent this afternoon wondering what it’s like to live as a slave. If I’m right, Carter’s been living like that for a lot longer than an afternoon. You asked me if I hated her. I don’t hate her, Harry. I don’t hate her at all.”
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