by Jamie Sawyer
Elena hungrily devoured the food, spooning down mouthfuls. I did the same. It was hot and plentiful – brown rice, mixed with real spices and a repro-meat of some sort.
“I read that Azure is on a rationing system,” Elena said. “Will I need a chip?”
“The military are exempt. One of the perks of being Alliance Army.”
“Good,” Elena said. She tapped one of the bottles with a finger, and raised her eyebrow in surprise. “But a lager? Is it alcoholic?”
“Only weak. Why? Do you want me to order you something else?” I asked. I swigged back a mouthful of beer; the bottle was warm, and had been relabelled. Probably substituted for a cheaper brand, maybe locally produced. The indigenous population – indigs – certainly didn’t drink, but the military machine on Azure kept the alcohol trade alive.
Elena went to say something, but just then a squadron of Dragonfly gunships screamed overhead. Six ships in formation. Gun-pods stowed, missiles racked under each wing. Like their namesakes; fast and deadly. Their engines were loud and they flew low over the city; leaving white engine trails in the sky. Elena involuntarily flinched as they went.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just running drills. They happen daily, several times sometimes. You’ll get used to them.”
I’d already grown accustomed to the constant air traffic. There was no fighting on Azure but there were regular manoeuvres.
“If the Sim Ops Programme takes off, then we might not need this martial force.”
“It will take off. I’m sure of it. You would not believe the things that I’ve seen. The things that I can do in one of those simulant bodies.” I shook my head. It was true: the early days of populating a simulant were like being born again. Such incredible feats of agility, of strength, of stamina.
“This is going to change everything. The next generation might find that there is no need for the regular foot soldier,” Elena went on. “Actually dying at war might become a thing of the past.”
“Let’s hope.”
“We’re part of something out here, Conrad. Part of something big.” She stopped eating, glanced out into the dusty street. She was smiling to herself. “We’re pioneers. If the Programme expands – there is no telling where it could go.”
“I’m just a soldier. I do what I’m told, go where I’m told.”
She nudged me in the arm. “You’re more than that. What about the promotion? Has Command approved you for full commissioned officer status?”
I chewed over a mouthful of rice, swilled it down with another swig of the warm beer. “I’m not sure about that. It’d mean commanding my own team.”
“You’re more than capable. I know you are.”
“Maybe. But let’s not talk military. You’re here, and we’re together. That’s enough for me.”
A gaggle of small children ran past us. Barefoot, dusky-skinned; wearing oversized frayed denim shorts and T-shirts emblazoned with logos for American corporations. They kicked a ball into the café, and I knocked it back out into the street.
“What do you say about making a contribution to the next generation?” I asked, pointing to the street children.
“What could you possibly mean?” Elena said, coyly. Her mouth seemed to shrink when she looked at me like that; a look that she only ever gave me. “You’ve got to make an honest woman of me yet.”
“So you want a marriage contract, is that it?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I want you to want a marriage contract.”
“But if I ask you, how do I know that you’ll say yes?”
“That’s for you to find out. A girl has to keep some of her secrets.”
“Last time we talked about this, you told me that it was too soon. And as I recall, we’ve talked about this a lot.”
“When you asked me before, we were on Jefferson Research Facility. Now you’re asking me on Azure. It makes a big difference.” She shrugged her small shoulders, as though her explanation made perfect sense and I was a fool for not understanding it.
“I don’t recall actually ever asking you – at least not directly.”
She pursed her lips, tutted to herself. It was all play-acting, of course, all part of her show. That was Elena. Theatrical, full of life.
“In any case, there would be things to do before you asked me. You’d need my father’s permission for a start.” She shook her head. “Christo bless him, he has never even left Earth.”
I winced, also light-heartedly. “So, let me get this straight: I have to travel back to Earth – cross however many light-years – go to France, and ask an old man for your hand in marriage? Your father is old, right?”
“Of course,” Elena replied. “He’s ninety-three objective years. And did I forget to mention that he doesn’t speak a word of Standard?”
“So I have to learn French as well. Then I ask you, and you may or may not accept. Then we get to have a hundred beautiful kids and settle down with a farm of our own on Azure?” I said, puffing out the last few words like I was out of breath.
Elena nodded knowingly. “That is exactly right. Surely you would cross light-years of time and space to be with me?”
“I’d cross the universe to be with you,” I said. “Truthfully.”
Elena leant into me, and we kissed. This was something deeper than the heart-flutter of a new relationship. I had never felt like this before. In that instant, staring into Elena’s eyes, I knew that I would never feel like this again. Her eyes were so wide, so deep. I was lost in them.
“Pretty lady! Pretty lady!” came a voice beside us. “You speak American Standard? You American tourist?”
A shadow fell across the table. A doubled-over old man, with skin like worn leather, stood over Elena and implored her to try some jewellery. He was dressed in colourful but stonewashed robes, and wore a cloth mask, his eyes peering out from a darkened face. He carried an oxygen tank on one shoulder and a water-cooler on the other. Over a knotted claw of a hand, the old man held out some necklaces and rings. He waved his hand and the jewellery clattered noisily.
“You buy pretty wife a necklace, Mr Soldier?” the old man asked, turning to me. He spoke broken American Standard, with a Middle Eastern lilt that could have been Egyptian or Iranian.
Elena inspected the jewellery. “Such beautiful handmade things.”
“They can tell you’re straight off the boat, Elena. You stop to talk to them.”
Elena was fascinated by the rings and reached in to touch one of them. It was an iridescent pink-silver, lined with tiny burnt orange gems. The hawker quickly took it from his hand and encouraged Elena to hold it.
“Finest Azure jewellery, only best for pretty lady. Made with original metals recovered from local area.”
Elena toyed with the jewellery.
“And, of course,” she said to me, drawing out the words melodramatically, “if you were to ask me for a marriage contract, you would definitely need a ring. This would be a very nice start, even if only as a stand-in.”
“Only best jewellery for pretty lady – good price for soldier,” the hawker added excitedly, ignorant of the conversation between us.
I reached for some paper cash – my unicard was no good here, on the grey market – and produced a handful of notes. The hawker became even more animated at the suggestion of money.
“Can take UA dollar or Alliance credits,” he said, gesturing to the ring. “Put it on, please do. Only one hundred credits.”
I paid the hawker, and he left us.
“It is a beautiful thing,” Elena said, nodding towards me. “If you would do the decent thing, Conrad.”
I slid the ring onto her finger. It was predictably too big – Elena had such slender fingers – but the sentiment was there. I focused on her face. She was beaming, happy. Her hand held mine more firmly.
“I would,” she said. There was a bright glint in her eyes, like unshed tears. “If you asked. I think I would. But for now, thank you for bringing me here, for getting me stationed o
n Azure.” She pushed her plate across the table, now empty. “What do you say about making a start to that contribution? The next generation, I mean.”
I left some crumpled Alliance credit notes on the table, and we swiftly departed the café.
Indig boys watched us from shadowed alleyways, eyeing Elena’s fair skin and my military uniform, as we walked through the city. Not quite children but not yet men; gangly-limbed, upper lips topped with thin moustaches. They observed us suspiciously and carefully: their intentions never quite clear. Something like jealousy, not yet bordering on anger, lurked behind their dark eyes. There was an element of menace to Azure City, at times, that I had only really noticed now that Elena was here with me.
The outside walls of the sandstone buildings were plastered with propaganda posters, loud and tri-D: advertising the Alliance military operation. On some buildings, enormous murals had been painted – faded, just like the rest of the planet. BRINGING PEACE TO THE EASTERN SECTOR, one said, with a picture of a soldier in full combat-armour standing over a dead Krell. A smart-ass had corrected the pastel-coloured wording with bright red paint, so that the words now read BRINGING WAR TO THE EASTERN SECTOR. There were other Alliance propaganda pictures displaying food rationing for local citizens, water supply monitoring.
There were towers, here and there, among the tightly packed residential buildings. Those were always lit; either by cheap electric lights or old-fashioned burning sconces. The azan – the call to prayer – droned from the minarets. The noise was still alien to me; seemingly broadcast night and day. It reminded me that I was a visitor to this world, that whatever Alliance Command thought, we came to Azure as occupiers not guests.
There were several hotels on Azure, but for that night we chose the most expensive – the Weskler-Trump International, right in the middle of the financial district. It was a luxury hotel, much plusher than I was used to, and catered for political visitors and the rich. I felt enormously out of place even checking in, but Elena was as self-assured and confident as ever.
We lay together among the tangle of bedsheets, dwarfed by the enormous hotel bed. It was late now and darkness had fallen hours ago. The suite windows were open wide, allowing a soft breeze into the room. My skin was clammy and sweaty from our lovemaking, frenzied and desperate as it had been. I dozed, Elena under one arm, a shot glass of whiskey in my other hand.
“Will we get in trouble?” she whispered.
“Why?” I asked. My eyes were closed and I drifted into that twilight between sleep and waking.
“It’s nearly twenty-three-hundred hours. That guard – he said we had to return by twenty-two-hundred.”
“What are they going to do, fire me?”
“Won’t you be AWOL or something?” Elena said, fumbling over the unfamiliar acronym. It reminded me that she was not real military.
We laughed together, harmoniously.
“I’m confident that it will slide.”
I felt Elena sit up in bed, propping herself with some of the pillows. She took the shot glass from my hand and noisily sipped the whiskey.
“It’s good stuff,” she said, a throaty edge to her voice. “Must be imported.”
“It’s American, single malt. This hotel has a nice range.”
She paused. I opened an eye. I could tell that there was something else that she wanted to say, that she was hesitant to voice to me.
“And what else?”
“Since when did you start drinking?” she asked me.
“Since I have things I need to forget,” I said, the truth unconsciously slipping out. Inwardly I cringed; this was too much to share. Not a topic for here, for now.
“What sort of things?”
I turned over in bed, facing her, and smiled. “Just things. Nothing.”
“Be careful, mon cher,” Elena whispered. The odour of whiskey carried on her breath as she leant in to me. “Don’t take on too much. How many transitions have you made now?”
I quickly calculated in my head. “Sixteen, I think. Three at Jefferson, the others since.”
“That’s more than anyone else on the Programme. Please, promise me you will be careful.”
I had died sixteen times. Even lying in that bed, in the most expensive hotel on Azure, if I closed my eyes I could mentally recall all sixteen deaths. Without even thinking, I took the glass from Elena and knocked back the remainder of the whiskey. The liquid felt hot and churlish in my stomach: reminded me immediately of the burn of Krell bio-acid on my skin, the look on Kaminski’s face as we had been surrounded by primary-forms—
Then I reached over to the bedside cabinet and poured myself another. It was an autonomic response – no thought involved.
Elena’s smooth hands reached onto my torso as I lay back on the bed. I was growing hard again. Her naked breast pushed against me. Her body was soft and exciting; still new to me. A real woman, not fabricated and augmented and modified like those I was used to. Her imperfections were part of her beauty.
We folded in to each other, but instead of realising my hunger, she touched the data-port on my left forearm. Circled the cold steel connector.
“Is this connection sore?” she asked me.
“Perhaps a little,” I said. I really didn’t want to talk about this here, now, but Elena obviously wanted to.
“The skin looks raw.”
I sipped down more of the whiskey. The skin looked raw because I’d had the ports drilled in quite recently. Under general anaesthetic, the military surgeons had gone through muscle, bone and bodily tissue to put the seven connections into me. They were eternal reminders of my new profession.
“Sometimes pain is good,” Elena murmured into my ear. “When you stop feeling it, you are dead. You said something like that to me, a long time ago. It means that you are alive.”
Elena stroked each of the data-ports in turn, slowly, curiously: one on each arm, at the top of my spine, on each thigh, two on my chest.
“What is it like, to make the transition?” she asked me. Her voice had dropped again to a husky whisper, and her French accent – usually masked, barely detectable – seemed thicker. “What is it like to be so intimately connected to the simulant? Is it the connection of lovers?”
I laughed softly. “It’s not like that. The simulant is just a machine.”
“But a flesh-and-blood machine.”
“Let’s not talk about it now. It’s work.”
Elena sighed. “You don’t like to open up, Conrad.” She sat up, pulling back the sheets, and clambered out of bed.
“I thought the medic’s orders were two weeks in the suit?”
Elena gave a dry chuckle. “And I said I’d see. Stop changing the subject. We were talking about you opening up.”
“Where are you going?”
She pulled on her underwear and padded to the pile of her clothing, retrieving a packet of cigarettes from inside.
“To the balcony. I need to smoke.”
She gave me a disappointed pout when I didn’t immediately follow her. I unashamedly watched her go: appreciating the gentle swing of her buttocks.
Eventually I followed her through the gossamer drapes of the balcony. The breeze outside felt good against my sweaty skin. Although it was night, Azure was very much awake. Three small bright moons hung on the horizon, casting a light strong enough to read by. Our suite was on one of the upper floors, and allowed a wide view of the city below. That too was a source of light: from the markets drizzled with multi-coloured street lamps, to the flicker of aircraft warning beacons on some of the larger buildings. Then, in the distance, Fort Rockwell itself. The base never slept; starships landed and took off from there throughout the day and night.
Elena leant on the gilded-metal balcony handrail, supporting herself while she gently dragged on the cigarette. She looked unreal, I decided. We had been apart so long that having her here, on Azure, felt incredible.
She caught me watching her, and gave me a small smile. “What? Why are you l
ooking at me like that?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“I do want to open up to you. I mean it.”
“Then tell me something about yourself, Conrad. Tell me something that matters. Something that you have never told anyone else.”
I sighed. For a long while we just stood and watched the city below. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell her something. It was that there was so much I could say.
“When we first met,” I started, haltingly, “you asked me lots about my family. About my upbringing, where I was from.”
Elena nodded patiently.
“And you asked me about my father. About what had happened to him. I didn’t tell you. It isn’t in the records, isn’t logged by the military so far as I know. I told you all about my mother, about how she was in the Alliance Navy. She died back when I was a kid.”
Elena listened solemnly now. She could tell that this was difficult for me. I fixed on a point on the horizon, on the flicker and flash of incoming air traffic.
“My father was in the military as well. You know about his record. Both of my parents were away for most of my childhood. Busy enough keeping ration-packs on the table, keeping Carrie and me fed. When my mother died, my father lost it.”
“Did he leave the Army?” Elena asked. Her tone was unobtrusive. She was a psych, after all.
“Nothing so easy. He loved my mother, I think, although near the end of her life they barely saw each other. When they were on shore-leave together, all we ever heard of them was the shouting from their bedroom. The tenements – they had thin walls. She would cry lots, my mother.
“So, my mother died fighting the Directorate. A while afterwards, father came home on shore-leave. Carrie and I had already moved in with an aunt and uncle. They tried to do good by us, but they had children of their own and there wasn’t much space or money to go around. There were lots of aunts and uncles in those days; and if you asked me now, I probably couldn’t name most of them.
“When my father came home for shore-leave, he stayed in a basement room in Aunt Beth’s tenement. We couldn’t afford to pay the rent on another apartment, and even the cubes were out of our price range. So he rented this tiny, dismal chamber from the caretaker. Aunt Beth tried to encourage him to see us, to spend time with us, but it was no good. I think that he was lost, then.”