by James Wake
She held a hand out to one glass wall. From up here, Nadia could see for miles, seawalls visible through wisps of clouds. Beyond that lay what used to be downtown, before a time she could remember, now an endless gray ocean with the rusting hulks of skyscrapers still rising here and there.
“Did you have me brought here for a history lesson?” Nadia asked.
“You come home without so much as a call?” her mother said. “Does a mother need a reason to want to see her daughter?”
“A good daughter,” Nadine said, “wouldn’t have to be fetched by armed guards.”
“Nadine! Leave her be,” their mother snapped. “Nadia, I still can’t quite understand this path you’ve chosen, but your father…” Nadia glanced at the empty chair, a spike of nausea piercing her gut. “…was always certain you would find your way, and I respect his wishes. I’ll even admit a certain respect for your efforts.”
“Yes, well,” Nadia said, “I would prefer to make my own way. At least for now.”
Her mother nodded, her eyes lighting up again. “You’ll need that angle one day. Self-made. Outsider. Very useful politically. Practically writes itself.”
“As useful as firsthand experience with the family business?” Nadine said.
“Worthy heirs, in due time,” their mother said, her eyes glazed over again as she poked invisible HUD interfaces with her fingers. “How is that little business venture of yours progressing?”
It took Nadia a moment to recall the semi-existence of Functional Fashions. She parsed her words, not saying anything right away.
“Ugh, that badly?” her mother said. “Did you come back to beg for another loan? I swear, your sister will be in charge of the financials.”
“I did not—” Nadia started to say, but caught herself and lowered her voice. “You brought me here.”
“You knew I would.”
She knew no such thing. Nadia had visited her apartment many times without incident. But of course, anything her mother did was only a natural, sensible reaction. Inevitable. The fault of others.
“Don’t forget her malfunctioning implant,” Nadine offered very helpfully. “Are you having issues with the follow-up treatments?”
“Yes. Thank you, Nadine,” their mother raised her chin, scanning unseen records. “We should get that taken care of today. It’s so hard to get in touch with you, Nadia.”
To her great credit, and due to a lifetime of practice, Nadia did not scowl, only felt the inside of her lip tremble. The corners of her mouth fought against curling. Briefly.
“I can manage my own treatment. Thank you,” she said.
“Show me your arms,” her mother ordered.
“Would you respect my privacy if that was part of Father’s wishes?”
“Don’t pretend to know what he wanted for you better than I do,” her mother said. “He was my husband.”
“Were you enacting his wishes when you had your husband killed?” Nadia dared to say.
To Nadia’s great satisfaction, her mother’s face fell, her mouth settling into a grim line. “We have been over this. We wrote an agreement.”
“You wrote an agreement.”
“He was in pain, Nadia. It was a mercy. He’ll understand.”
“How are you so sure of that?”
“Don’t patronize me, girl.” Her mother let the last word cut across the room and echo.
Nadia remained still. Deep breath. Stay calm. No fear, no weakness. Those were the only things respected in this boardroom.
“I knew his wishes,” her mother said, recomposing herself. “But I understand your doubts. It was hard…for all of us. Perhaps it would ease your mind to speak with him?”
That spike of nausea split open, a gaping wound in her gut. “Mother, he’s dead.”
“He’s right through that door over there.”
“He’s dead.”
Her mother waved her hand. Such a simple gesture. A wall behind them slid open.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, do NOT cry.
Nadia knew what it was. She wanted to scream and spit and tear her flesh off in great jagged slices, anything not to look at what was behind that wall.
But she couldn’t look away.
A large tube lay against the wall, wafts of white vapor pouring from the top and down the sides. Hanging suspended inside, upside down and blurry through wisps of liquid nitrogen, was a naked corpse.
Her mother rose and wandered over to it, gentle and calm. “I understand, Nadia. We were all devastated when he left us.”
When you killed him.
“It helps me to look at him. To know in my heart that he’ll return to us one day.”
I hope you go to hell with him.
Her mother stepped up to the tube, held a hand out, and caressed the reinforced glass. “Oh, Arthur…”
Leave him alone. Leave him alone!
Nadia couldn’t take it anymore. She dropped her eyes, hiding behind her hand and choking out a solitary strangled sob.
“Pathetic,” Nadine said. “Mother, look! She can’t even look at her own father.”
“You mean the frozen corpse of my father!”
“Vitrified. Not frozen. You know the difference,” Nadine said, rolling her eyes.
Their mother paid them no mind, speaking to the tube with a dreamy smile. “One day, Arthur. One day. Cured and hale and healthy. You and I.”
“He’s dead,” Nadia said. “There is no cure.”
“Not yet,” her mother said.
Silence but for the low hiss of coolant bleeding off the tube. A pump whirred to life, cycling the fluids an ounce at a time.
“May I go?” Nadia said. “I would like to go now.”
Not even turning around, her mother waved a hand again. Nadia was up and out of her chair in an instant, her boot heels clacking loudly toward the door.
“Nadia?”
She froze. So close.
“Hug your mother goodbye.”
She didn’t move. Her mother came to her, a relentless slow stalking. There was no escape.
“It was good to see you,” her mother said, wrapping her arms around Nadia and hovering them just shy of actually touching her. Nadia made no move whatsoever. It was better this way—there was zero warmth to her mother’s body, not even a pulse. Only the low whirring of her artificial heart cycling blood through her veins.
* * *
Tess wasn’t in the office.
After dropping her gym bag on the floor, Nadia did a quick circuit of the office area. Break room, empty. Suite, empty. Bathrooms, empty. The array of screens at her desk was dark, actually dark, not the drifting field of stars they faded to when idle.
Nothing to panic over. Nadia took a deep breath, repeating the words under her breath: “Tess is fine. Somewhere.”
“Hello?” she whispered into her turtleneck, leaning in yet again. “Are you there?”
Nothing. It took her several tense seconds to remember she’d taken out her earplugs. Her hands dove into the pockets of her coat, digging for the plugs but finding only her glasses. She put them on while she kept looking for the plugs.
A message notification popped up. Nadia stared at it, then fumbled at the sleeve of her coat, trying to uncover the panel on her sweater. Before she could get to it, the message printed out.
Basement, sublevel 3.
Another long elevator ride, down below the garage she had come from. Nadia willed her tapping foot to stop; felt her hands closed tightly in her pockets, the remains of her fingernails digging into her palms.
The elevator door opened to a dim hallway with bare concrete walls. She’d barely taken a step out when a loud crash made her freeze.
“Tess?” she said, leaning out into the hallway.
“Yup, down here.”
Nadia tried hard to disavow any overwhelming sense of relief that flooded her
chest. She made her way down the dingy hallway, passing metal doors marked only with numbers. The hall turned and opened up into a wide room where steel steps led to a lower floor.
Tess was leaning against a wall, holding a flat device up to it. Her usual hoodie was gone for once; instead she wore a hot pink T-shirt with enough sleeve to cover where her prosthetic met the stump of her right arm.
She didn’t even look over; her eyes were lit up as she frowned in concentration. Nadia watched as Tess slid the device to various spots on the wall, only now noticing the shallow hole smashed into the concrete.
“I apologize for the way you were…” Nadia started to say, trailing off as Tess paid no attention to her whatsoever.
Tess nodded, stepped back, and picked up a sledgehammer, her right arm lifting it effortlessly. Holding it one-handed, she swung it at the wall, making Nadia flinch as the shallow hole grew one chunk deeper.
“I never would have brought you there if—” Nadia started.
Smash. Another one-handed swing.
“I hope they at least conducted themselves—”
Smash.
“Not that I was worried, I know you can handle yourself, but—”
Smash. Chunks of concrete and dust piled up on the floor at Tess’s feet.
“What are you doing?”
Tess stopped and dropped the hammer. She lifted the small flat thing—a sensor if Nadia had to guess—and rubbed it all over the uneven hole she had made. A mischievous smile spread across her face as she dropped the device to the floor.
“Watch this,” Tess said.
She drew her right arm back and snapped her skeletal hand loudly into a fist. Nadia actually cried out as she watched—lately she’d been educated quite thoroughly regarding how badly a foolish punch could hurt.
Tess’s fist slammed into the deepest part of the hole, punching through up to her elbow.
“Woo!” she yelled, rubbing her right shoulder with her free hand. “Ow… my shoulder wasn’t built for that, it turns out.”
It took Nadia a moment to remember to say something; she blinked as she composed herself. “What has possessed you to do something this stupid?”
Tess ripped her arm out of the wall and brushed dust off her prosthetic. “Come look,” she said, shrugging at the fist-size hole she’d created.
Nadia made a show of not wanting to, but joined her at the wall anyway. She bent low, peering into the dark space in the wall—perfectly black. A cold breeze blew out, thick with the scent of damp rot.
“What’s back there?”
“That”—Tess pointed to the hole— “is your way into that lab. And anywhere else you want to go.”
Nadia gave her a skeptical look as she curled her nose up at the stench wafting from beyond the wall.
“When they rebuilt this city, they raised the streets.” Tess gestured to Nadia’s glasses; her HUD filled in with a wireframe vision of the other side of the wall, what looked to be a tunnel of some kind.
“I thought the ruins were filled in,” Nadia said, knowing it wasn’t true. She’d been in plenty of hideouts under the city’s streets, although she’d never wandered very deep.
Tess shook her head. “Not even close. There’s miles of space down here. Old streets, sewers, subways. Some of it’s still flooded pretty bad. Not exactly safe either.”
“And what? I’m meant to slog through whatever muck is in there?” Nadia repressed a gag. “How do you know there’s even a clear route?”
“That’s what I’m down here to find out.” Tess crouched, opened a small case, and pulled a tiny drone out that whirred to life. About the size of a hummingbird, it hovered out of her hand and zipped through the hole in the wall. Immediately the wireframe map in Nadia’s glasses expanded.
“Fly, my pretty,” Tess said. “Give that thing a few hours. And then we’ll see if we’re in business.”
“Hmm.” Nadia followed it through her glasses, watching the dark tunnel take on a more defined form, seeing pipes overhead, as well as blank spots on the ground where she guessed water had pooled.
“Glad to see you’re okay,” Tess said.
Nadia almost bit her lip. “Likewise. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. How high up is your mom, anyway? I mean, I know she’s some kind of bigwig, but you…never…”
A scowl snuck onto Nadia’s face. She forced it back.
“Sorry. Shutting up,” Tess said. “I mean, the cops haven’t shown up here yet, so I guess I can assume you weren’t compromised?”
“Ha!”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Wouldn’t matter anyway. They don’t have a chance of catching this sweet action,” Tess said, tapping her own chest.
“Is that so?” Nadia sounded delighted. “And what if I had failed to make my escape from The Structure?”
Tess grinned. “Oh, I’d break you out for sure.”
“As easy as smashing through that wall?”
“You know it.” Tess struck a heroic pose, with her chest puffed out. But she deflated rather quickly. “For real, though, that place is insane.”
Nadia took a deep breath that turned into a lost sigh on the way out. “Were you recording the whole time?”
“Of course. But I lost your feed after we got split up. They must have some excellent jamming up top.”
“Any chance you can recover any of my side?”
“I can try,” Tess said. “What happened up there anyway?”
Nadia ignored that. “How long do you keep your recordings?”
“Pretty much forever.”
She nodded. That would do nicely.
* * *
The gym in Jackson’s apartment building was empty. It almost always was.
She preferred it that way, honestly. Gym time was alone time, her refuge before another long, dark shift. Better to have no one here to distract her, to bother her, to witness those times when her muscles shook and went limp and gave out on her. It had happened again today, at the very height of a bench press.
Fine and strong and healthy one moment, and the next?
Her arms had collapsed—shaking and then gone—her extra strength kicked out from under her. Fortunately the rack had engaged its safety catch, stopping the bar inches from her chest. Enough weight on the bar to crush her sternum, for sure.
Now she was dancing around a heavy bag, launching a straight right into its thick mass. The thing kicked and rebounded off the pole behind it, wobbling until Jackson tapped it with her left to steady it for the next assault.
Again. And again. Pain shot up the cores of her arms with each strike. Sharp aches wrapped around her bones.
Beeping in her earpiece. A three-minute round complete. She threw one last haymaker at the bag, sending it spinning wildly on its chain. Then she rested her hands behind her head as she paced, breathing in great gulps of air.
Her gloves pressed against her skull, hard, as she tried to quell the shaking in her hands. One wall was made of mirrors, showing her the neat, light-colored scars on her arms that popped out against her dark skin. Her legs had the same marks, clean cuts across her muscles. She supposed that it really wasn’t necessary these days, but she had kept herself in fighting shape all these years anyway, tall and broad but lean with lethal strength.
She’d asked for help, trudged through the Sisyphean hell of the VA process. Many times. Not too proud to do that, not after years of intermittent agony. She knew all too well that pain could break anyone eventually. Help was the least they owed her after all she’d done, all she’d survived.
Pills and shrugs were what she got. Mean jokes. She couldn’t sleep because of the pain, so she took the pills. Then she couldn’t sleep because of the pills. Jumping awake every hour or two, trembling and drenched in sweat. At least it made her decision to hit the gym a simple one most days. Might as well.
She ripped off her gloves,
tearing the Velcro flaps open with her teeth. Her hands felt numb, weak, and weightless.
Come back if you need to talk.
Not that she needed help from a bunch of homebrew bodyhackers. She’d likely wake up in a tub of ice, missing the synthetic fibers buried deep in her limbs. Probably be short a few organs too.
A small part of her, very quietly, wondered aloud if it would really be so bad to wake up minus her implants.
Treatment.
Jackson had heard nothing from Ortega about the transmitter, gotten no tips from his informant. Probably a big waste of time.
The girl probably knew her stuff, though, if her prosthetic was any indication. The army had given up on synthetic implants like Jackson’s a long time ago; too expensive, they said. Too permanent. Why bother when you can slap a rig on any warm body then move it to the next one when that body goes cold?
It didn’t matter. They were grafted to her bones.
Clank when you move.
Snarky little bitch. Jackson snorted, making up her mind. It was time to pay that shop a little visit, ask what was taking so long on that info. Not talk about treatment. Just follow up on a possible lead.
She left the gym and swung by her apartment, skipping a shower or change, just throwing on a jacket and grabbing her piece. Not her mother’s gun—much too big and heavy. A slim little snub nose she could slip into her pocket.
Walking helped. It wasn’t far to the alley market where the electronics shop was, and the air felt cool and crisp and pleasant in her lungs. And she wouldn’t have to waste a few bucks on those annoying self-driving cabs. At least nothing could force her to look at the ads out here. Not yet anyway. Walking around without her goggles on, with no HUD crowding her vision, was a joy all its own.
It wouldn’t last long. The sun was fading fast. She didn’t have much time before her shift started—another long eight hours, hopefully a quiet night this time. She’d spent the night before at the cleanup from another mass shooting, then gone right away to a raid on a street clinic, rounding up and cuffing people who’d handed out food and clean needles and condoms.