Archangel

by Marguerite Reed

  We sat in my bed, propped by pillows—some arranged strategically around my knee—the computer projecting text and appropriate illustrations. With both Lasse and the Beast on my mind, I chose the Iliad.

  The story of wily Odysseus, rife with monsters and feats of cunning, had been pared down for children any number of times. Not so the vast bloom of the Iliad, veined with pain and futility. I wondered: had Hruodland-Roland known those stories? Had his enemies? Had something like Achilles’s drive for fame motivated that centuries-old hero? That was the worst sort of egoizing, we were all taught.

  Bibi scrooged deeper into my lap as images flowed through the space above the screen: the Lion Gate and Lower Town of Mycenae, leaf-bladed swords, black-figured kylixes, shimmering maps of the Aegean Sea. She might’ve understood one word in five of what I read to her (I was too tired to try the original Greek), but that was my last concern at the moment.

  She giggled every time I used her foot to turn the text’s pages. Her solid little body bobbed against mine; with each delicious peal of laughter, I had to smile. Until we came to the sorrow of Achilles’s horses who mourned their slain charioteer. Tears ran down their faces, their heads lain on the ground in grief, their manes in the dirt. As I read to my daughter, I had to go slow; I felt my mouth draw down in a hard bow to keep from tears myself. She squawked a little when my arms tightened around her during Zeus’s words:

  Poor wretches

  why then did we ever give you to the lord Peleus,

  a mortal man, and you yourselves are immortal and ageless?

  Only so that among unhappy men you might also be grieved?

  I felt no benison in being rescued from death. No renewed appreciation for sunlight, fresh air, the muezzin’s call. How sunk I had been in grief, I had not guessed; how saved I was, I could not grasp.

  Bibi twisted in my arms, absently kneeing me in the groin. That dried the tears in a hurry. She looked up at me, searching my face with a gaze as gray as hematite, and held her pacifier up to me.

  “Better,” she said, in a tone that indicated she would tolerate no more nonsense.

  I hugged her hard to me, my face in her neck, pulling her scent into my lungs. Why, Lasse, why? And not tell me?

  The physical therapy after surgery on my knee hurt more than childbirth. The mental therapy after killing and wounding those intruders was worse.

  At first, right after the surgery, the meds put my leg in a computer-controlled brace that worked my knee for me. Bend, straighten. Bend, straighten, while I lay in bed with the tears running into my ears. I could take drugs if I liked, but then I couldn’t have Bibi with me—and Bibi at that moment was my only joy. Every time I hugged her she patted me with her little hands. One arm slung around my neck, she fed me strawberry slices. I hoped my pain could expiate the guilt that swamped me every time she planted a baby kiss on my cheek.

  To save time—and to distract me—the re-educator accompanied me on my physical therapy sessions. As I fumbled with my crutches, she asked me whether or not I equated human life with animal life. While I swore my way through mini-squats, she took notes on the types of profanity I used. I should have been grateful she declined to accompany me to the toilet.

  “Come on, just five more; you can do this,” rang in my ear from one side. And in the other, “Do you obtain sexual pleasure from killing?”

  I was unwise enough to growl out “I haven’t had sex in four years.” That certainly got noted by the re-educator, and earned a muffled “tsk!” from the physical therapist.

  As part of the therapy we reviewed the raw footage that had been confiscated from Bearce. The struggle on the little cliff’s edge did not, to me, look like the audience-pleasing stuff Bearce had crowed about. I supposed that with the right manipulation, it could garner “hordes of adoring fans.” Two muddy people rolling around; one of them is briefly less muddy than she was before.

  More interesting to me was how the Beast had behaved from start to finish. I’d been fool enough to let him have the knife (another instance of suicidal behavior, apparently), and he never used it—he gave it back to me. With the exception of one kick to the belly, he had never attacked me. Oh, certainly he’d defended himself—I had to have shots for the bite on my hand—but all his moves had been to protect himself or get me to cease my stupidity.

  I pored over that for some time. In the middle of the night, waking with my heart pounding and sobs strangled in my throat, I would reach for the playback and watch it one more time.

  He had no intent to hurt me. To stop me, certainly. But not to hurt me. Never to hurt me.

  Occasionally the two therapists would snipe at each other as well. The two women were like night and day to look at: Karen, the physical therapist, wore her brown hair in a braid that swung down next to her spine, over her shoulder, in my face, wherever she turned her bony head. Next to her, Sundari looked like a dark plum, all soft shining curves, with a smile that never dimmed, even when she scolded Karen.

  “Citizen, do you have to push her so hard?” she said while I lay on my back doing knee-chest pulls. “She can’t think straight, she’s in so much pain.”

  “Do you have to probe her all the time?” Karen returned. “She can’t focus and give her body the commitment it demands, what with all of your horrible questions.”

  I lay between them, gasping, too tired to wince when Sundari bore in with sanctioned self-righteousness. “She needs our help. This woman has killed people.”

  “Probably because she was being asked stupid questions,” Karen shot back.

  “Or because she had to do fifty leg lifts,” Sundari snapped.

  “I killed them,” I said, puffing and sweating, “because they endangered my life. Because they were endangering the lives . . . of the people I was responsible for. Doesn’t that count for anything, Dr. Krishnan?”

  “My dear, it’s not just that. We’re concerned about your suicidal impulses. There was that fight. With that man.”

  That man was back in his cell. The Bucha-armed, laser-carrying interlopers were in cells also, on the only other holding level. They had been moved after one of them had tried to disable the current across his cell’s doorway in order to get at O-389.

  I had not wanted the Beast back in his cell. I wanted to talk to him; I was ready, finally, to hear what he’d been trying to tell me these months. Patrol & Rescue had put the cuffs on Bearce, on Zhádāo, even; and I corroborated András’s decision in my capacity as a member of the Integral. But when András had nodded at the P&R officers to cuff the Beast, I protested.

  “You’re out of your head with pain and fatigue,” András told me, not unkindly. And with other things, his expression said. “This is the second time I’ve come to rescue you.”

  “Would you rather I’d been successful?”

  He’d shaken his head with a jerk of distaste. “What a damn mess. He told you there’s going to be a war? We’ll be smashed. Annihilated. Perhaps we should just open up the borders now.”

  I was put on a stretcher; the Beast was marched onto a VeeTOL. My ligament was replaced with new tendon; the Beast was injected with bacteriophages to clean his stab wound. We both spent hours in interrogation.

  As the Integral forbade torture, I suspected no one was getting much out of O-389. I could suggest a dose or two of Karen, I thought sourly as I maneuvered down the prison level corridor with my walker. Z. Ismail, still at this assignment, welcomed me with never a lessening of warmth. I could’ve wished for a complete stranger, though: the expression on her face at her first sight of me added another bruise to the collection Sundari had doled out.

  “Citizen,” she said. Her use of that word revealed much. “It’s . . . good to see you.”

  I pulled my mouth into a reasonable shape. “Glad you’re still here.” Her tension loosed somewhat when she saw I could lift my palm to the door and be accepted.

  “He asked after you,” she offered.

  I grunted as I bulled the walker through th
e doorway. Wisely, she stepped out of my way, and did not offer to help when one of the walker’s feet got stuck in the door’s groove. So many things I took for granted now bled away time and energy and my precious temper.

  “What does ‘Z’ stand for?” I asked between gritted teeth.

  “Zahara,” she said. “My father named me after a desert. I’ve seen pictures.”

  No desert on Theta, none on Ubastis. To us deserts remained a concept, a handful of heat and sand multiplied. We discussed these concepts as I wrestled the walker down the hallway. She pretended not to notice; I pretended not to notice there was anything worth noticing.

  He asked after you. When I hove into his view he was up and at the entrance, just as before. He looked much the same: browner, perhaps. The bulky bandage at his left side that I’d expected was not there, and the bruises I remembered had disappeared.

  Not one particle of arrogance could I find to warm myself, nor pride, nor rage.

  “O-389,” I said, and sat in a controlled collapse on the bench.

  I could read his expressions, now: emotion that I did not want to think about suffused his face. “Jesus, Commander,” he said.

  I leaned my head back against the wall and wept for a while. Tears were never far away now, and I let them come when they would. Like urine, or sweat. Zahara Ismail looked horrified. I asked that she leave, and she didn’t offer even a sham of reluctance, or the loan of her weapon.

  “I had it all figured out and I didn’t even know it,” I said, my eyes shut, leaking salt. “So much for that. I didn’t kill you, you’re just back in a cell, and I’m—”

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Surgery,” I said. “Re-education.”

  “Re-education,” he repeated, voice thick with what sounded like disgust. “You don’t need re-education, you need to hold an assembly.”

  “The Integral wants to make sure I have my head grafted on right first.”

  “Do you think your head’s on right?”

  I barked a laugh. “No. Hell, no. I think I’m messed up seven ways from Salaam.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Pump you for more information.” And stop this goddamn crying. “You’re the one who’s stirring the pot. So you gotta give it up.” I pointed my chin at him. “Let’s see it.”

  He pulled his shirt up to reveal a thin pink line about five centimeters long. Interested despite myself, I leaned forward. A very nice job.

  “Was there an exit wound?”

  It was his turn to laugh. “We don’t think that re-education’s going to take. They didn’t erase your professional interest.”

  I felt heat in my face and I made a show of wiping away the boring tears. “If I didn’t do the job, I’d like to know what my margin of error was,” I said.

  He possessed a remarkably gooey grin for such a badass, all the way to his molars. “Very narrow, Commander.”

  Commander. Not Doctor. Was I playing into Moira’s plans after all? Which one of them lied to me, the woman or the Beast? If O-389 were telling me the truth, why had Lasse never told me?

  The recent nights had been filled with pain not merely physical.

  “And what have they done to you?” The question tumbled out before I could stop it. “What questioning have they done?”

  “‘How are you today, O-389?’ ‘Does your wound pain you, O-389?’ ‘Could you clarify what you mean by “spy,” O-389?’ Everyone’s been very . . . polite.”

  “And this war that you’re so sure is going to happen? Did you tell them what you told me?”

  He shook his head, not looking at me.

  “O-389?”

  “We can give you that intel. It’s up to you to disseminate it.” He shrugged. “Captain Undset died before he told us who else we could trust.”

  “You said—back there—you’re going to take care of me now.”

  He nodded, his expression returned to its usual watchful blankness.

  “Is that what you think? That my husband took care of me?”

  “We meant you need a bodyguard.”

  “A bodyguard? Why?” I goggled at him.

  “To protect you from people like Bearce.” He studied the floor for a moment, left hand rubbing the right, where he’d been burned. “And yourself.”

  “What, you think I’m gonna try again?”

  “Killing yourself—that doesn’t go away. Seen it before. On Mustaine.”

  “Going to save me from myself, is that it?” Our gazes clashed again. I wanted to look away—primate nerves telling me to capitulate, to lower my eyes, but I held firm. “And did you save anyone on Mustaine?”

  After a moment, he answered: “We did not stop trying.”

  The last time I’d been in this room hubris and rage filled me with room for nothing else. Now I did lower my gaze, ashamed; and puzzled and angry at the shame.

  He gestured to the walker.

  “No hunting for me now,” I said.

  “Ever?”

  “I’m not the woman I was.” It was meant to sound flip. My ears heard it as pathetic. My face would not stretch even to approximate a smile.

  “Cheetah Woman, we figured you for a lot of things, but we never figured you for such a pussy.”

  It must have been a trick of my tired and guilt-wracked subconscious. I offered him an uncomprehending little shake of my head, inviting him to repeat himself.

  “You heard us right,” he said. Severity stretched to a sneer. “We said you’re a pussy. Fucking yellow down your back like the Milky Way, except we guess with you we could call it the Pissy Way, huh?”

  I pushed myself off the bench with my good leg and staggered at speed to his cell. “You piece of gen-monkey shit—” My voice tore in my throat; all my pity for him had been stamped down to a flat blade. “Get us out in the green again and we’ll see who’s a pussy—I’ll piss on you ‘til you drown in it, you motherless—”

  His expression stopped me. “Not the woman you were?” he asked softly.

  “Christ, just when I think—I can’t trust you for a second, can I?”

  “You can always trust us, Commander.” Once again the cell’s humming mesh bisected the space between us. “You’re our Natch.”

  “My Beast,” I echoed. “But what does that mean?”

  “You’re the biologist.” As I shook my head in irritated non-comprehension, he went on. “Imprinting. We imprinted on each other.”

  I lowered myself to the ground, too drained to stand; he followed me into his accustomed crouch. “It’s not sexual imprinting,” he went on. “Although we knew some Natches who were fucking their Beasts. It’s not parent-child imprinting either.”

  A hundred questions jostled in my brain, but only one made it out: “Why?”

  “Survival mechanism. Like the inability to say—to say that word. It’s a modification. Our oxytocin-vasopressin receptors. Every human has them, but we can trigger the reaction. Helps increase loyalty to our unit and to our commander.”

  “And how does it work the other way, on a Natch? My receptors haven’t been tampered with. Why not an Enhanced person?”

  “Ever wonder why the Enhanced don’t get addicted? You’d never find that damn Bearce shooting up in his nutsack—he wouldn’t ever develop a tolerance.”

  I flapped my hands at him. “Go on.”

  “You didn’t know this? It starts even at basic Enhancement. Way back when the protocols were formed. Powers that be figured that addiction was a greater evil than a decreased ability to form social bonds. So the Enhanced have fewer oxytocin receptors than Natches do.”

  “Okay, basic biochemistry. You’re not telling me what I want to know.”

  “You remember when we coded? When Moira called you into the medbay?”

  I thought back on that night, which was now a jumble of blue-lit sleek surfaces, anger, fear, the squelch of biogel through my fingers. Cupping my shoulder with my hand, I described circles with my right elbow. Cartilage an
d tendons crackled beneath the skin.

  “The chemicals. We secrete them.”

  “You . . .” I stared at him. I remembered my mouth on his while the instruments shrilled. Pushing my air into him. I’d filled him full of me—and taken what? I could trust no one. No one. Hands over my face, shutting out the world for a moment, I tried to take a few slow breaths.

  “If we’re around a Natch,” he went on, “if we haven’t already bonded with one—or if a previous bond hasn’t been reaffirmed for a while, we secrete oxytocin. Or vasopressin. Depending on the Natch. So all this time you’ve been wrestling around with us, yelling in our face, you’ve been jacking with a chemical switch aimed right at you. And now we’re both fucked.” He did not sound as unhappy about this as I felt, however.

  After a moment, I was able to respond without my voice breaking. “It didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t it?”

  “When have I shown the slightest bit of bonding with you? Or trust?”

  “Every time you came close to us without killing us. Yeah, we joke about it—but you know as well as we do you could’ve offed us at any time. Your oxytocin receptors have been stimulated since Undset died.”

  Denial blanked my mind for a moment. “Moira getting the cheetah.” Stroking a mammal—a pet—contributed to oxytocin production.

  He nodded. “The cheetah. That cheetah pic helped us a lot.”

  “That damn thing—I don’t know what Moira thought she was doing, letting it go viral like that. Advertising Ubastis. Advertising me.” I thought for a little bit. “Oh. Oh. You saw it. And that started the bond from your end.”

  He nodded. “What happened to the cheetah?”

  “Mumtaz.” Mumtaz, my baby, my cuddly toy, my friend. Ahh, damn the mine mine mine. Mumtaz had been all herself, and that had brought her down.

  “I killed her.”

  “What?”

  “That didn’t make it into your gossip webs?” Tired of weeping, I glared at him. He shook his head, so I continued.

  “We let her have the run of the place. She knew not to go into other apartments, but you might have found her stalking through the halls or people-watching at the agora.” Lolling on a bench, the color-stained sunlight candying her fur. A few people were brave enough to stop and speak to her; most, though curious, admiring, cut an arc in their progress when they saw her.