Human After All

by Connie Bailey

  “Even though you’ve blocked outside surveillance of this room, I assume your personal recorders are running.” Jaymes waited for her nod before he continued. “I killed D.P. Ampery,” he said. “But not of my own will. My behavior mods were circumvented and overridden by a mechemical designed by a Pygmalion chemjineer. He and some other leaders of the movement were involved in a conspiracy to place Speaker Cade Londean in the President-General’s chair.”

  “I see. Tell me, Jaymes Randle, why did you come back to the Cloister to make this confession, knowing your life would be forfeit?”

  “I had to. Now that I know what it feels like to truly love someone, I had to take this chance to speak directly to you, to someone with the power to make changes. I know you’ll listen to my words with an open heart.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “Because you feel that love too.” Jaymes glanced at Trevver.

  “The boss is pronging the seckry?” Mino said.

  “No!” Jaymes and the Attorney exclaimed simultaneously.

  “Ma’am?” Trevver said.

  “Just be still,” Ulrikka told the young man. “I can handle this.”

  “You were an Exotic, weren’t you?” Jaymes said to Trevver. “Before the Attorney Exec arranged for you to become a Citizen.”

  The seckry’s smooth Scandinasian features betrayed no emotion. “I’m sure that’s obvious to you, T-bred.”

  “What do you want?” Ulrikka asked.

  “I want you to give all Bioware the chance you gave your son.”

  The Attorney Exec stared at Jaymes for a long moment. “How?” she said.

  “The very discreet lab where you had the DNA tests done employs a tech who’s been a Pyg operative since the first days of the movement. Of course, your real name wasn’t on the sample, but the Pygmalions have someone watching everything that comes out of your office. They immediately recognized the blackmail potential.”

  “You’re my mother?” Trevver said to Ulrikka.

  The Attorney Exec turned to her private seckry with a complicated expression. The silence drew out as she weighed the consequences of her next words. In the end, her love for her child won out. “Yes, Trev, you’re my son,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” He paused. “Why was I brought up as a Companion?”

  “I didn’t know.” Ulrikka glanced at Jaymes and Mino before she continued. “You know the story of how I was born in the Outers, but worked really hard in school and got the kind of grades that got me noticed by a conglom recruiter. What no one knows is that two days before my Ap-T for an OJT day pass to the Inners, I found out I was pregnant. I knew your father wouldn’t marry me, and I certainly didn’t want to be tied to a member of a narcotics tong. I wanted out of East Central Ring, and I knew I wouldn’t make it with a child so I went to a government women’s clinic, and they did a vac job on me.” She paused. “You know the rest, Trev. I became a lawyer, and then a politician, and now I’m the Attorney Exec. I met Sire Etty Fronzay when he made a campaign contribution, and he proposed a merger a few months later. I did my best to forget I’d ever been pregnant, and since Etty had heirs from his first marriage, it was no great tragedy when I learned I’d never have children.” She paused. “Or so I thought.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Trevver came to stand beside her desk.

  “Don’t say anything yet. It feels good to finally tell the truth, and the truth is that I never forgot about you, never stopped imagining what you’d look like as each year went by. I worked harder and harder, making sure I had no idle time. Etty and I grew apart, and I became very lonely. One day, after talking to a friend over lunch, I took her suggestion and called Gentren’s booking office. Soon I had an account with standing orders. Then they sent Trevver, and the bottom dropped out of my world. He looked exactly like my lover Nishi, but with my eye color. After I recovered from my shock, I acquired a DNA sample under the guise of a job interview.”

  “I was so thrilled that you were offering me a job,” Trevver said. “And when you offered to facilitate a Citizenship for me, I thought, here’s one politician who stands by her words.”

  “I couldn’t stand the thought of my son selling himself.” Ulrikka took Trevver’s hand. “I know there’s nothing morally wrong with Bioware, but—”

  “But there is,” Jaymes said.

  “Madam?” The Attorney Exec’s receptionist said over the comm. “You asked me to let you know when the President-General was ready for your lunch meeting.”

  “Please call and tell his office I’ve been delayed.”

  “He’s here, madam.”

  Mino glanced at the door. “The President-General is here?”

  “Beckram and I are old friends,” Ulrikka said. “Once a month, he walks down to have lunch with me. His security fusses about it constantly.”

  “Madam?”

  “Just a moment, Merla,” Ulrikka said. “What’s wrong?” she asked Mino.

  “I have a bad feeling,” Mino said. He turned to Jaymes. “Are you sure you didn’t bring anything back from the Fringe?”

  “I’ve told you, there’s no bomb.”

  “Bomb?” the Attorney Exec echoed.

  “No, there’s no bomb,” Jaymes said firmly.

  “Madam?” the receptionist spoke again.

  “Yes, Merla?”

  “The P.G.’s assistant is being very insistent on entering your office.”

  “What’s his name?” Mino barked.

  “Lynus Kaygill,” Trevver answered, holding up a holopad displaying a man’s image.

  “He’s a Pyg,” Mino said without hesitation. “Don’t let the P.G. in here.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ulrikka said. “If Lynus is a terrorist bent on killing the President-General, he’s had plenty of opportunities as Beckram’s personal assistant.”

  “But then his usefulness would be at an end,” Mino said. “If the Pygs can make it look like a renegade piece of Bioware assassinated Beckram Harte, Lynus Kaygill would still be around to spy on the next P.G.”

  “Madam?” the receptionist’s serene voice had taken on an edge.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let anyone in here just now,” Ulrikka replied. “I need a few moments of privacy first.” She turned off the comm. “Let them make what they will of that,” she said.

  “They’re sure to be suspicious out there,” Jaymes said.

  “We can expect an armed response team in less than seven minutes by my reckoning,” Mino said. “That allows for the general dithering before anyone actually calls for the ART.”

  “What do we do?” Jaymes asked Ulrikka.

  “Let me think,” she said, her eyes straying to Trevver.

  Mino unhooked his belt and began to unwind a cable from around his waist. “Contingency plan,” he said when he looked up and met Jaymes’s eyes.

  “We’re one hundred and forty stories up,” Jaymes said. “How long is that cable?”

  “Long enough.” Mino pulled a three-inch long plastic cylinder from one of his many pockets and slammed the end against the wall beneath one of the big windows. A jet of compressed air propelled an eyebolt into the wall, and Mino hooked an end of the cable to it. The other end was hooked to a quick release ring on his belt. “If I say go, you grab onto me and hold as tight as you can,” he told Jaymes.

  “Are you sure this is necessary?”

  “We’ll see.” Mino glanced at the Attorney Exec.

  “Mother?” Trevver said, trying out the sound of the word.

  “Yes, dear?” Ulrikka put her hand over Trevver’s where it rested on the desk.

  “I know you’ll do what’s best for everyone,” he said. “But will it be the right thing?”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I think you should do what you know is right.”

  “Ulrikka?” P.G. Harte’s familiar voice came over the comm.

  “He’s had the system overridden,” Ulrikka said. “Hello,
Beckram. Sorry I’m late for our meeting.”

  “Is there a problem I can help with?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  “Does this concern your two visitors?”

  “Only peripherally. The two men with me are here at my invitation. The fact is that I’ve decided to take a stand on the Bioware rights issue. You’ll think I’ve been coerced into saying this, but it’s how I truly feel. This system of castes we’ve built has accustomed us to treating a segment of our society as less than human, but they are human after all. Bioware deserve the same rights as any other person, be they Citizen or not.”

  “If you’re not being coerced, what convinced you to take this stand?”

  “The son I aborted was harvested and raised as Bioware. I want him to be able to marry whoever he wants to marry… legally. I want him to be able to have legitimate children if he wishes. I want him to be able to own a house so his family will have a home of their own.”

  The President-General cleared his throat. “I see,” he said. “I see why you feel so strongly. Why don’t you come out, and we’ll discuss it over lunch?”

  “I just need a few more moments,” Ulrikka said.

  “Tell him to get away from the door,” Mino said.

  “Do you really think the Pygmalions sent me here to kill the P.G.?” Jaymes asked.

  “That’s my gut feeling.”

  “I wonder if I could talk to your visitors,” the President-General said. “What are their names, by the way?”

  “Sly old hound,” Mino said as he looked at the chrono display ticking away the seconds on the wall. “He’s trying to stall us. Jaymes, are you poz you brought nothing back from the Fringe?”

  Jaymes touched his chest and felt Lochler’s pack tag under his shirt. “I forgot about this,” he said as he pulled it out. But it’s not a bomb. Hey!”

  Mino snatched the chain from around Jaymes’s neck and squinted at the metal tag. “No, not a bomb,” he said. “This is just the trigger. The bomb was probably planted by Kaygill. We have to get this out of here now and hope its range is short.”

  “You don’t have anywhere to go,” Trevver said. “You’re one hundred forty stories up in a building where all the exits are being blocked as we speak.”

  “That’s right,” Mino said as he took out his firearm. “But we’re also in a building that has a regular taxi route between it and the next structure.” He aimed at the window and fired a bolt. The silicasteel melted at the point of impact and then shattered outward. “Go!” Mino shouted as he holstered the weapon.

  Ulrikka put out a hand. “Don’t,” she said as Mino put an arm around Jaymes’s waist.

  The office doors blew in, and Jaymes ran in step with Mino to the gap in the wall. Throwing his arms around the murk’s neck, he held tight as they launched into space. The cable paid out as they plummeted until it ran out. They stopped with a wrenching jerk, and Mino stiffened his legs, pushing off the side of the building as he threw the pack tag as hard as he could. Jaymes’s heart contracted with a pang as his last link to Lochler disappeared.

  “Hang on,” Mino said as he hit the release. Mino and Jaymes fell another few feet, and then a solid mass rose up to meet them. “Grab onto one of the cooling fins!”

  Jaymes felt around until his fingers encountered a row of louvers and got a grip. The taxi they’d fallen onto wasn’t in any hurry, but was still going fast enough for the slipstream to flip them off like cards if they weren’t careful. Jaymes followed Mino’s example and crawled into the aerodynamic contour molded into the flank of the craft. A few heart-stopping minutes later, the cab landed gently on top of the company garage. After the jets stopped turning, Jaymes and Mino slid to the ground.

  “Let’s never do that again,” Jaymes said.

  “You could have stayed.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  Mino smiled.

  “I was wondering if you knew how to smile,” Jaymes said as Mino climbed into the pilot hatch of the taxi. “What are you doing?”

  “Resetting it to manual. So why did you come with me? If you’d stayed, I’d bet you’d be cleared and made a hero of the Bioware civil rights movement.”

  “That would take too long, and I want to see Drue.”

  “Maybe you should get one of those bracelets with the portrait pendants. Then you can see him anytime you like.”

  “I want to do more than look at him.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Mino said as the cab’s jets whirred to life. “Get in, and I’ll take you to your slank.”

  “He’s not a slank.”

  Mino smiled again.

  “All right,” Jaymes said as he buckled the seat harness. “He’s a bit of a slank, but I love him.”

  “Slanks are more fun anyway,” Mino said as he pulled back on the control stick.

  As the teardrop-shaped vehicle rose from the parking pad, a screen in the dash bloomed with light, and a simucaster began talking at a rapid clip. When they were away from the cab company building without an alarm being raised, Mino stabbed a finger at the screen, cutting off the newsbabble in mid-sentence.

  “If the first thing we heard wasn’t about an explosion in the WEC headquarters, then it didn’t happen,” he said. “How does it feel to save the P.G.’s life?”

  “Maybe we did, and maybe we didn’t. We’ll never know.”

  “That’s life.” Mino steered the cab away from the middle of the Cloister and headed for Jaymes’s apartment building. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m touched by your curiosity, but honestly, I have no clear idea what I’m going to do… beyond spending as much time as possible with Drue.”

  “If you stay in the Cloister, the govs will find you, and you’ll be lionized or crucified, depending on public sentiment. This is an election year, you know.”

  “This is my home,” Jaymes said. “If it’s fragged up, shouldn’t I stay and help fix it?”

  “You’ve changed, Prince. The first time I saw you, you were a typical, naïve, arrogant T-bred. Now look at you.”

  “What am I now?”

  “Aware.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Mino glanced at Jaymes. “Yeah, it’s good. Painful sometimes, but better than ignorance.”

  “Sometimes you talk more like a philosopher than a mercenary.”

  “Can’t I be both?”

  Jaymes chuckled. “It’s bizarre, considering the circumstances, but I feel amazingly… unburdened… by anything. I should be worried, but I’m not. I’m just happy to be.”

  “Hold on to that feeling.” Mino tilted the stick right and forward and hovered in front of the garage port of Jaymes’s building. “Care to key in the code?”

  “I don’t own a vehicle, so I never—”

  “The general entry code should work.”

  “How do you know more about my building than I do?” Jaymes asked as he typed the code into the cab’s dashboard holopad.

  “Because when I take a job, I do my research. I visited you right after Lady Alvera booked you and had a look around your place to learn what I could. That was the first time I watched you while you were sleeping. The Lady’s majordomo reprimanded me the next day for looking tired on the job, and she told him to have more compassion.”

  “You killed her.”

  “She was pointing a plasma pistol at me.”

  “Oh,” Jaymes said as a light flashed over the garage entrance. “I couldn’t see it from my angle.”

  “And you were scared out of your wits.”

  “Yes, I was. And you contributed in no small part to that fear.”

  “I did my best to stop you from fleeing, and then I chased you all over the Grange to bring you back. It’s been a long time since I was that entertained.”

  “It entertained you to kill Lochler and his pack?”

  “I couldn’t let them keep you. You would’ve been Lochler’s bitch inside of a week. I saved you from that.”<
br />
  “So your story is that you were protecting me?”

  “Partly.” Mino pulled the cab smoothly into an empty berth. “I’m as sorry as I can be that I had to kill those lobos. They got a raw deal all the way around.”

  “It almost sounds like you care,” Jaymes said as the wing door swung upward. “Don’t you make all your decisions based on logic and personal gain?”

  Mino pushed the autopilot homing button and got out of the vehicle. “I care about you,” he said. “To my surprise. There were at least two times when I could have killed you in your sleep, but each time I left you alone and went after other prey. I told myself it was because you were too valuable to waste, but that was a lie. I actually considered keeping you for myself.”

  “Why would you care about me?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s against all my conditioning, but there it is.” Mino paused. “I could make myself kill you. I just don’t want to.”

  “I’ll try to stay on your good side.”

  “If things fall out the way I think they will, you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “And I was just starting to like you,” Jaymes said sarcastically.

  “You sounded like the Zot just then.”

  “He’s bound to have some influence on me.”

  “Try and keep it to a minimum.”

  “Why don’t you come and say good-bye to him?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would annoy him and amuse me.”

  When Jaymes moved away to the lift, Mino followed. At the apartment, Jaymes tapped a code on the blank surface of the door, and it opened. One step into the room, and he knew it was empty.

  Mino picked up the subtle vibration of unease from Jaymes and looked warily around.

  “Drue,” Jaymes called out, though he knew Drue wouldn’t answer.

  “I should have expected this,” Mino said. “But I didn’t think the Pygs knew that Drue was here.”

  “Do you have any idea where they would have taken him?”

  “Look around. They must’ve left you a message.”

  Jaymes went to the bedroom and found his earring on the nightstand. As he picked it up, he saw a holopad halfway under a pillow. “In here,” he called.