Human After All

by Connie Bailey

  “It won’t frag him up any worse.”

  “Go ahead, then. As soon as we get out of the trees, we can put him on the raft.”

  “Rodge.”

  “Hey, Jannes?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be gentle, okay?”

  “You got it.” Jannes pressed a small patch behind Lochler’s ear that melted into his skin. In moments, the lobo was alert and trying to get to his feet. “He’s gonna need help,” Jannes said as she steadied Lochler.

  “I’ll help him,” Jaymes said, moving to Lochler’s side. He got his shoulder under Lochler’s arm and supported him.

  Lochler anchored his arm around Jaymes’s neck. “I’ll try not to bleed on you too much,” he said as they started off behind Lorez.

  “I hope they can fix you,” Jaymes said. “Thanks for—”

  “Forget it,” Lochler said gruffly. “I was thrilled to get a shot at Mino.”

  “You know him?” Jaymes asked as Drue fell in behind him and the lobo.

  “He’s a legend in my former line of work, and on the personal side, he killed half my pack in the Second Crop War.”

  “Weren’t you on the same side?”

  “It’s not that clear-cut. My pack got a little too far ahead of the line and saw something we shouldn’t. Reps from the opposing sides were making a deal. They could’ve ended the war right there, but they decided it was better for the economy to keep it going for a few more months. When my pack members realized what was going on, they reacted by attacking the meeting. Not smart. The reps had brought See Youz.” Lochler took a long, shuddering breath.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Near as I can tell, I’ve got busted ribs, scratched lungs, a compound fracture, and untold soft tissue damage. That’s not counting scrapes, bruises, and gouges.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be walking.”

  “You’re probably right, but that go-juice they shot me up with works real good.”

  Jaymes looked at the lobo and glanced quickly away from the terrible injuries. “I’m sorry I brought this trouble to your door.”

  “It’s worth it,” Lochler wheezed. “If only to hear an apology from your sweet lips.”

  Drue rolled his eyes and tried to tune out the rest of the conversation, but it was damned near impossible. Why was the T-bred still being nice to the lobo when the lobo could no longer do anything for him? It was out of character and made Drue wonder what other surprises he could look forward to. At least they’d be getting back to civilization soon, thanks to Alvera’s foresight. Maybe then the T-bred’s fascination with Lochler would fade, leaving the field clear for a new object of interest. Wrong or right, Drue was going to stop resisting his attraction to Jaymes and do what he could to win him before someone else bagged him.

  AT THE point where Lorez led his party out of the forest, sat a rectangle of metal about a meter high, six meters long, and two meters wide. With everyone’s help, Lochler was hoisted onto the raft, where he stretched out with a groan of relief. Lorez touched a jewellike stud on his earpiece, and the craft rose a few feet in the air.

  “It’s not haitek or anything,” Lorez said. “But it gets the job done.”

  “You won’t hear me complain,” Drue said. “Where are we headed?”

  “Blue Sky, breau. You can get slack now. You’re almost home.”

  “What’s Blue Sky?”

  “That’s Blue Sky City.” Jannes stood from beside Lochler and pointed to the horizon. Beyond the expanse of flat fields, a line of wooden and metal towers poked at the sky. “It was built from salvaged aircraft and wood from the forests.”

  “Most of the people here just want to live free of government restrictions,” Lorez said. “But some of us are working for causes, and this is a good place to do that.”

  “We’re almost there,” Jaymes told Lochler.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the lobo said. “I just hope I got that murk as good as he got me.” He smiled at Jaymes, his teeth gleaming white in the frame of his dark beard. “I’d like to think he’s bleeding out under a bush somewhere.”

  “I hope so too.”

  “I’m real glad I got to meet you.”

  Jaymes took Lochler’s hand. “It’s my honor,” he said.

  “Wake me after they sew me back together, will you?” Lochler’s smile drooped as he closed his eyes.

  “I’ll see that you’re taken care of,” Jaymes said, but he didn’t think Lochler heard him. Though the lobo was unconscious, Jaymes sat beside him and held his hand until they reached their destination.

  The raft floated through a gate in a stone wall and settled to the ground outside a rambling, three-story, wood and stone building. Jaymes gazed at the arched doorways and many-paned windows in wonder.

  “That’s real glass, isn’t it?” he said to Lorez.

  “Yes, we make it here. Those are real windmills too. They provide most of the power that isn’t stolen from the Grid in the form of batteries.” Lorez spoke into his headset. “Sorry,” he said to Jaymes. “That was the med. He’ll be here any second.”

  As Lorez was speaking, a door opened on the first floor, and five people came out. Two men and two women lifted Lochler from the raft as the third woman used a diagnostic hyperkyoo probe.

  “They’ll take good care of him,” Lorez said as the meds hustled back through the door with Lochler. “You come with me. Arkay’s waiting to meet you.”

  “He was Lady Alvera’s chemical engineer,” Drue told Jaymes. “He’ll be able to help us.”

  LOREZ led the Companions to a guarded door at the back of the first floor. He greeted the sentry and said good-bye to Jaymes and Drue. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” he said as he left them with the guard.

  “Your visitors are here,” the sentry called out as he gestured to the open door behind him.

  The voice that answered was a reedy tenor that was nonetheless warm and welcoming. “Send them in.”

  As Jaymes and Drue entered a small, makeshift office, a man in a jacket so frayed it looked fringed came eagerly around his desk to greet them.

  “Bless my jeedee soul! I was betting the beacon was some sort of trap, but we couldn’t ignore it and here you are. Outside the Cloister. And you made your way through the Grange without a linx for the most part. Incredible, really. But I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Arkay, because when I was younger I was the recpharm king. Dealers I sold to called me R.K., and I was relatively famous for the quality of my chemical cocktails.”

  “I’m the Fox,” Drue said.

  “Yes, I know. Let’s have a look at the pair of you.” The skinny ragamuffin put his hands on his hips and gave Jaymes and Drue a leisurely inspection. “You’re fine, you are. The finest! I try to keep up with developments in Erotic Bioware, but I have more pressing concerns and only so much time to spend in research.” He whistled softly. “But I can see with half an eye that you two are top-of-the-line. No expense spared to raise and train you. You’re damn near perfect.”

  Jaymes inclined his head in acknowledgment of Arkay’s words.

  “That wasn’t exactly a compliment,” Arkay said. “But perception rules, am I right?”

  “I won’t argue,” Jaymes said. “Are you really the one who designed—?”

  “So you’re the Prince,” Arkay interrupted. “I’d say I know you as well as you know yourself. Maybe better.”

  “Then you are the one who did this to me,” Jaymes said.

  Arkay grinned, showing a set of long teeth. “I’m the chemjineer who mapped your nervous and endocrine systems and wrote a program to regulate the firing of your synapses. I’m the one who mixed the right chemicals with the correct codes to modify your behavior. In a very real sense, I wrote you. You’re definitely not the same person you were when you accepted a contract from House Cygne.”

  “Make it stop.”

  “Impossible. The enzyme alignment is complete within forty-eight hours. If Alvera followed her schedule, the changes
are now permanent.” Arkay glanced at Drue. “For both of you.”

  “Fix it,” Jaymes said.

  “I’m afraid what’s done is done.”

  Drue frowned as he leaned closer to the engineer. “If you can make those changes, you can make something that will change them back.”

  “Why are you so torked about it? The compulsion grid only lasts forty-eight hours. It’s out of your systems by now, leaving behind all the good stuff. Why don’t we sit, and I’ll explain a few things? But first, did anyone ask if you were hungry?” Arkay looked inquiringly at the Companions and then spoke briefly into the pendant hanging around his neck. “Someone’s bringing you something to eat,” he said to Jaymes and Drue. “Anything else I can get you?”

  “We need a way back to the Inners,” Jaymes said.

  “I know, but have a seat and take a few easy breaths. And then I’ll find someone to take you to the Cloister.”

  “You make it sound simple.”

  “It is simple, though not without danger. But you’ve become used to danger, haven’t you?”

  It wasn’t a question, so neither Companion answered.

  “What would you like to know first?” Arkay asked.

  “Where’s Lochler?” Jaymes asked as the door opened.

  A Pygmalion came in and set a tray down on the desk. Arkay thanked the girl, and she left as quietly as she’d arrived. When Jaymes and Drue had helped themselves to the bread and cold meat, Arkay answered Jaymes’s question.

  “The lobo is being cared for. I hope he’ll be fit for travel by the time you go back to the Cloister. It would be convenient if he could go with you.”

  “Why?” Drue asked.

  “To provide one more example of how biotechnology is misused. That was Alvera’s mission.”

  “Of course it was,” Drue said.

  “I studied your schematics thoroughly, and I have to tell you that it’s an amazing feeling to see you walking and talking.” Arkay cleared his throat. “But let me tell you about the mods. You’ve probably already noticed the neuromesh. The two of you have a simple psionic connection that—”

  “I always know where Drue is,” Jaymes interjected. “Sometimes I can see what he sees and feel what he’s feeling.”

  “Exactly.” Arkay smiled at the T-bred. “You look disappointed.”

  “Do I? It wasn’t intentional.”

  “I believe you. In fact, it looked like a natural emotional response. Imagine that! A T-bred with genuine feelings.”

  “I have real feelings. I just keep them where they belong, and they have no place on the job.”

  “Gentech must be so proud of you,” Arkay said. “You’re pure product.”

  “At least I’m not dying in the street fighting for scraps of garbage, and one day I’ll be a Citizen.”

  “I believe you’re one of the few Companions who actually has a chance of making that dream come true. But don’t you think the price is a little steep?”

  “I didn’t make the world,” Jaymes said. “I’m just trying to live in it.”

  “Why not try and change it?”

  “You Pygmalions have no grasp on reality.”

  “The only reality you know is the one Gentren programmed into you.”

  “I’m a human, not a machine.”

  “No, you’re not a machine,” Arkay said. “But you’re not exactly human either, not a natural one, anyway.”

  Drue didn’t like the tension in Jaymes’s neck muscles. “You’ll have to explain that,” he said to Arkay. “As far as I know, the only mods T-breds have are x-terns like combat training.”

  “You have no idea,” Arkay said.

  “Enlighten us,” Drue replied.

  “That is my intention.” Arkay sat back in his battered chair. “How much do you know about the lobos?”

  “Lobo is a slang term for a special soldier,” Jaymes answered. “I believe they’re scouts.”

  “I keep telling him he’s naïve,” Drue said to Arkay.

  “You probably aren’t much more knowledgeable,” the chemjineer said. “But I’m assuming Alvera shared her information with you.”

  “She told me how embryos that met certain criteria were altered with viruses and foreign genetic material. She told me they were raised in camps and trained for guerilla combat. She told me they were called lobos but that werewolf would be more accurate.”

  “Ridiculous,” Jaymes said, but his skin prickled as he remembered the feel of Lochler’s sharp claws and soft body hair.

  “Werewolves are mythical,” Arkay said. “But IndMilCorps had a good try at making them real.”

  “Men who turn into wolves?” Jaymes scoffed.

  “No, of course not, but they engineered a hybrid of sorts.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Jaymes said. “That’s not legal.”

  “Of course it isn’t, but that didn’t stop it from happening. Not at IndMilCorps or at Gentren or any of a dozen congloms I could name. They get away with it because they have the blessing of some government agency that makes them exempt from the law. If we had managed to put Speaker Londean in the President-General’s seat, we would’ve made sure he cleaned house at those agencies.” Arkay’s smile was bitter. “What a pity it didn’t work out that way.”

  “You weren’t working for Alvera,” Jaymes said. “She worked for you.”

  “There’s that famous T-bred insight,” Arkay said. “The intuition of a gambler who’s learned to read the slightest change of expression.”

  “You’re the leader of this… organization.”

  “I am, and it’s larger than even Alvera knew. There are hundreds of people in place who would have used their positions to inform, influence, and protect Londean as he used the power of his office to eventually outlaw Bioware. The outcome of our scheme was never sure, of course, but we didn’t reckon on the depth of Deputy-President Ampery’s psychosis. You weren’t meant to delete him until Londean had left the Covillion, but the D.P. forced your hand.”

  “You didn’t reckon on the depth of his psychosis?” Jaymes said softly. “I saw it firsthand, and I can assure you it was profound.”

  “Well, obviously, that’s why he couldn’t be allowed to continue holding high office. He had to go.”

  “You put me in that room with him knowing what he was. You used me the same way Gentren uses me.”

  “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

  “You can’t decide that for someone else,” Jaymes said.

  Arkay sighed. “I know, but when one sacrifice could change the lives of so many for the better, it’s easy to rationalize. Our intel indicated we had an optimum means and opportunity to separate Ampery from his guards, and we went ahead and implemented an assassination.”

  “And I was your implement,” Jaymes said. “You forced me to kill a Citizen, and it was not a pleasant experience. I had no control over my body, and I was terrified.”

  “I apologize. It was a mistake to use murder to achieve our ends, but we haven’t given up yet. We can make the Citizenry aware of the corruption by taking a case to the Attorney Exec.”

  “Why would the Attorney Exec listen?”

  “Because you’re going to turn yourself in for questioning about the D.P.’s death.”

  “Are you out of your jeedee mind?” Drue exclaimed. “He’ll be fragged on sight.”

  “We have a plan.”

  “Is it as good as your last one?”

  “Drue.” Jaymes turned to meet the other Companion’s eyes. “I need to talk to Arkay alone.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Drue stood and left the room.

  “So you want to be a Citizen,” Arkay said when he and Jaymes were alone. “Why?”

  “For the usual reasons. I want to vote, own property in the Inners, have legal children.”

  “You might get the first two, but you won’t be having any children unless you contract them.”

  “Why not?” Jaymes paused. “Other Companions have child
ren. What did Gentren do to me?”

  “They knew any children you had would be… different, so they made sure you wouldn’t have any.”

  “I’m sterile?”

  Arkay nodded. “You were probably counting on making a small fortune in stud fees from women wanting purple-eyed babies, but that’s another thing Gentren took from you.”

  Jaymes reined in his disappointment at the news that he couldn’t father children. “Why are you so passionate about this?” he asked. “You’re not Bioware.”

  “No, but I designed the program that altered the lobos. I have a lot to make up for.”

  “Are the lobos sterile too?”

  “Every one of them. Every piece of Bioware modified with the proteus virus is sterile. And there’s the shortened life span. Anything past fifty is a gift.”

  “Drue?”

  Arkay shook his head. “He’s clean of any genetic mods.”

  Jaymes relaxed a trifle. “So I was tampered with in the womb?”

  “At conception, actually. Your mother was infected with the virus.”

  “I see. What was done to me?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I know how it was done, but I can’t know for sure what strands Gentren incorporated in the virus. Proteus is just a carrier that gets the other matériel into the subject’s DNA and convinces it they’re from the same host.”

  “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

  “I couldn’t… not without thorough testing, and we don’t have time for that right now.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “Every day we delay, our enemies get closer to finding us. Will you go back to the Cloister as a spokesman for our cause?”

  “I want to see Lochler.”

  “He’s not conscious.”

  “Even so, I’d like to see him.”

  “All right.” Arkay rose and opened the door behind his chair. “Come with me. Did the lobo do something prosaic like save your life?” he asked as Jaymes joined him in a narrow corridor.

  “There’s no need to sneer.”

  “I’m not sneering at his heroics. I’m sneering at your interpretation of them. Lochler acted out of instinct and programming and nothing more, but you want to believe it’s something else. The way you want to think you have a special bond with the Zot when it’s nothing but your nature… or rather, the nature Gentren gave you.” Arkay stopped in front of a door marked Infirmary. He sighed. “You have a romantic soul, which is why I lied to you about the lobo.”