Hammered

by Elizabeth Bear

  Mitch grinned. “You get attached. Yeah, I know. Me, too. Come on, let’s make some coffee or something.”

  “There’s a break room around the corner.” Mobarak waved Mitch ahead. Industrial gray carpeting scuffed under his loafers. The door was locked; Mobarak keyed them in. “Do you take anything in your coffee?”

  “Black.”

  “You do know Jenny.” Mobarak pressed the button on the coffeemaker. It whirred, weighing and grinding beans. Steam hissed, and the musky, silky aroma filled the room.

  “Jenny? That’s what you call her?”

  “It’s her name.” The doctor shrugged, pulling plain, too-small ceramic mugs from the cabinet over the sink. “She’s been kind enough to donate a lot of time to my research. We go way back.”

  “Huh.” Mitch accepted the mug that the doctor extended to him. It warmed the palms of his hands when he cupped it, and—sudden odd thought—he wondered if Maker ever missed that sensation. “I never would have thought her the sort for charity work. No, actually, I’m full of shit, Doc.”

  “What do you mean?” Mobarak lounged against the counter, stirring his own drink with a plastic straw.

  “Oh, Maker. I always thought she was an army doc or medic of some kind. She’s always fixing up some kid with a busted finger or something. Amazing she finds the time to keep her business running.”

  “She was an EMT,” Mobarak answered. “I suppose I can tell you that. Special forces first. When she returned to active duty, she managed to pull a combat exemption and flew medevac.”

  Mitch nodded, smiling. “I just found that out yesterday, actually, along with all sorts of other things I didn’t know. And I’m guessing she’s really sick now because of it, isn’t she?”

  The doc took a big breath and held it—confirmation—but shook his head. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “All right.” Mitch swirled strong, hot coffee around his mouth, swallowed, and sucked his teeth. Thank God this guy sucks at keeping confidentiality. “Look, do you know anything about her having a sister?”

  “No next of kin, as far as I’ve heard. She’s got an emergency contact listed, but it’s a friend in Montreal. An old army buddy, I think.”

  “Well, fuck.”

  “Huh. Is this only about Jenny, Detective?”

  “No.” Mitch turned aside and kicked the leg of the cheap card table shoved into the corner. “I think whatever has her on the run has something to do with my … with a friend of mine, a fellow officer. Who got killed.” He heard the pain in his own voice and despised it for a weakness.

  Whatever. Mobarak took a rattling breath. “Look.” The doctor shook his head. “She mentioned you to me. If you’re the same Mitch. And I can’t—I can’t share information with you. I’m already over the line.”

  Mitch heard the but in his voice and leaned forward, holding his breath, blinking hard before he glanced back up and caught the doctor’s eye. He nodded, afraid to encourage him.

  “But I’ll call that contact. See what I can do about getting her a message. Okay?”

  It would have to do.

  Thirteen years ago:

  in the Heavy Iron

  University of Guelph

  Tuesday 7 June, 2049

  1:00 P.M.

  “I am not,” he said at last, “Richard Feynman.”

  If the coffee Elspeth was sipping had been real, it would have come out of her nose. “Excuse me?”

  The physicist smiled and ran a hand through tousled gray hair. “Because Richard Feynman died fifty-three years ago.”

  Her cup rattled on the table when she set it aside. “All right, Dick,” she told him. “You got me. You’re not Feynman. So tell me what the hell you are.”

  “I don’t know,” he said carefully.

  Elspeth Dunsany grinned hard. “Postulate, Dick.”

  His hands tapped his knee, restless, seeking. “I have always held reliance on paranormal explanations to indicate a lazy mind. But I sure as hell feel like Dick Feynman.” He shrugged. “Even though Richard Feynman is dead. So I’m left with interesting gaps in my logic.”

  Elspeth raised an eyebrow inside her VR suit. Her image mimicked the motion. “How did you find out that you were dead?” she asked him.

  He held out a portfolio. “I found the library. These clippings were in there. Along with more information about my compatriots—and myself—than I ever imagined existed.” He sighed. “It’s a shame that I never got to Tanna-Tuva.”

  Allen-Shipman Research Facility

  St. George Street

  Toronto, Canada

  Late morning, Monday 11 September, 2062

  Gabe Castaign moved his long-fingered right hand through the three-dimensional interface, directing data streams with thoughtless dexterity. With the left one, not looking, he flipped open a box of mints and picked one out, sucking it off of his fingertips. Elspeth, leaning over his shoulder, caught a sharp scent of wintergreen. “May I have one of those?”

  “Sure.” He slid the tin into reach. “My kids made a big deal about how much I smelled like garlic when I got home last night. I figured I’d take pity on you.”

  “Kids?” They’d had dinner again the night before—Sunday dinner. Thinking of garlic and indulging, Elspeth took two of the hard little candies, wincing at their strength.

  “Girls,” he said with a grin. Still without glancing away from his monitor plate, he touched another icon. The interface plate shimmered, and a hologram of two golden-haired adolescents materialized over the far left corner of the desk. One was perhaps thirteen, the other ten or eleven. The taller girl leaned smiling into her sister, an arm around her shoulders; the younger one seemed taut and focused, leaning toward the camera. The younger had eyes as blue as her father’s. Those of the older were gray-green.

  “That’s Leah, after my mom. The younger one’s Genie. She’s named after my wife.”

  “How long have you been married?” Elspeth almost laughed out loud at herself, pleased she managed not to let disappointment show in her voice. He did mention that before, but I assumed …

  He leaned back. Elspeth smelled warmly spicy aftershave. “We were married four years,” he said. “Leukemia. I raised the girls on my own, more or less.” He glanced away, frowning, and tapped the image down. “Do you have any kids?”

  “Married to my work,” she said. “And then I went to jail. Not much conducive.”

  A rough-edged silence stretched between them, punctuated by the crunch of Gabe chewing on his breath mint. He broke first. “So how do you get your artificial personalities to be more than really complicated chatter-bots?”

  “Turing test stuff?” She shrugged and stepped around the desk, so she could speak to him from the front. And, incidentally, control her urge to lean against his shoulder. “Well, you don’t, really. No, that’s wrong.” Her hands tumbled over one another in midair. “They’re exactly like really complicated chatter-bots. You just keep adding layers and layers of complexity and information and reactions and algorithms until you get to these very complex multifaceted variables.”

  “Tolbert equations.”

  “Yes. And you give it all the memory you have, and put it into a series of increasingly complex situations.”

  “And then?” Gabe’s hands slowly stopped moving, hanging amid the jeweled lights of his interface. His brow furrowed and he looked up at Elspeth, meeting her gaze directly.

  “And then one day it either wakes up or it doesn’t.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, looking back down at his carefully trimmed fingernails. “That’s not mighty scientific, Doc. How do we know that it works?”

  “Because it works.” She shrugged. “Sometimes. And why it works sometimes and not others … hell, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “What if I pointed a gun at you and told you, ‘I need an answer’? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  Her hands spread wide. “Dammit, Gabe. I’d say it comes down
to will to live.”

  “You sound like you have something specific in mind.”

  She nodded. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”

  He grabbed his jacket and followed her out the door.

  The lab and offices sat on a little green oblong not far from the University of Toronto, where Elspeth had taught in the days before she found herself in jail. There was a coffee shop on every third corner, and the familiar street names were like a homecoming. She breathed in the late summer air, slinging a sweater retrieved from her office over one shoulder. It had rained overnight, but the humidity was rising with the sun, and the day promised heat.

  Gabe was taking his jacket off again. “You know, September, I keep thinking it ought to be cooler.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not even really autumn yet.”

  “True.” His voice dropped. “Okay, so what was so important you didn’t want to tell me about it indoors?”

  “Ah. Well.” She scuffed concrete with the sole of a loafer. “Richard Feynman, frankly.”

  “The physicist? One of your original five artificial personalities.”

  “Yes.” She reached up to swat at a dangling leaf. He grinned, and she blushed. “More than that.”

  “Oh?”

  The conversation was interrupted as they arrived at the coffee shop, and Gabe ordered just plain coffee. Elspeth got a cappuccino with extra whipped cream. They took the drinks outside and sat at a blackened aluminum table meant to look like cast iron. Elspeth took a long sip of her drink and watched Gabe fuss with cream and sugar. Is this someone you can trust? Well, you’re not telling him anything Valens doesn’t already suspect. “He’s the one that worked. Developed awareness. Became … a person.”

  “Ah hah.” His voice was neutral, interested. “That’s quite a judgment call, Elspeth. What do you base it on?”

  She felt gratitude. “Once we were engaging in ontological discussion on the nature of consciousness, it was hard to deny his point. I remember once, I told him that he was nothing but electrical impulses in crystal, and he came back that I was the same thing in meat. It was a hard point to argue.”

  “What happened to him?” Gabe leaned forward. “Why aren’t we using those records?”

  Elspeth laughed. “That’s why I went to jail, more or less. I wouldn’t give him up.”

  “Give him up? To whom?”

  She nodded and played with her paper cup. “Valens wanted my work for the army. For the war effort. I deleted my most recent backups. Was going to erase Richard, too.”

  “And did you?”

  “I …” her voice trailed off. “I gave him an Internet connection and bought him some time. I hope he made it. I don’t know.”

  “Ah.”

  “The colonel was not amused. Especially after my research partner broke a soldier’s nose with a printer stand.” She grinned at Gabe’s startled laughter. “That was Jack Taylor. I made him turn state’s evidence against me. He had a wife.”

  His laughter trailed off. “And then you went to jail for over a decade.”

  “Indeed. I never did tell them that I didn’t delete all those records. The ones we’ve been working from are earlier backups.” She pushed her chair back and stood up, picking up her nearly full cup before he could ask the question forming in his eyes.

  After so many years, what made you change your mind?

  He came around the table to her, leaving his coffee cup behind, and touched hers to the side with two fingers on her wrist. She looked up, startled, into those earnest, cheerful eyes. How does anybody who has been through so much—wars, left widowed with children—smile like that? I wish I had his spirit.

  “I admire your guts, Elspeth,” he said. “What do you think about making one of these working dates into a real date, sometime?”

  Elspeth turned aside and set her coffee down on the table. Just like Momma, running around with the white boys, she thought, and the thought came very close to making her laugh out loud. Which he would have misunderstood entirely. “Actually, Gabe, I’m not looking for a … dating relationship right now.”

  “Ah.” He stepped back and turned away to retrieve his coffee. “Mad at me for asking?”

  “Not at all. I’ve got a counterproposal. I’d hate to ruin this friendship with expectations and the dating game foolishness. I’m not in the market for a husband; that’s never been my goal in life.”

  He nodded to show that he was listening, and she was kind enough to wait until he swallowed the coffee.

  “So how would you feel about a little friendly sex once in a while?”

  1200 hours, Monday 11 September, 2062

  Allen-Shipman Research Facility

  St. George Street

  Toronto, Canada

  Adrenaline hits. The bottom drops out of my world.

  Gabe Castaign barrels down the corporate-blah hallway, arms spread wide, yelling a welcome like he hasn’t seen me since Christmas. He’s as big as Razorface, maybe bigger, but Gabe is all teddy-bear these days, while Face is a gleaming, well-oiled hunk of muscle. Ignoring Valens and Barb, prisoner’s escorts on either side of me, he’s ready to sweep me into an embrace.

  Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen me since Christmas, and he seems not to notice the steaming coffee slopping over his hand. There’s a little dark-haired woman about my age four steps behind him. She balances a paper cup in her hand as well, and I see her startlement in the long moment that stretches while that rivulet of coffee trickles over Gabe’s wrist, slow as honey on an October morning.

  This shouldn’t be enough to trigger me.

  But my heart

  hits the bottom of my chest cavity,

  each beat long and slow and painful

  as my hands come up and

  I sidestep,

  pain falling away,

  left hand reaching …

  Valens’s voice, then, slow as a creaking door: “Castaign, STOP!” and Gabe halts at the snap of the command. I struggle for control, take a step back, between my sister and the doctor, away from Gabe. I gag on bile and go down on one knee in the steep sick aftershock of the adrenaline and the thing I almost did.

  Again.

  Valens puts a hand on my shoulder, holds the other one out to take the coffee cup away from Castaign. Blond, blue-eyed Gabe Castaign, a man who’ll crawl through a fire for a girl he’s never met, lets hands that could half-encircle a cantaloupe hang limply by his side, looking from me to Valens and back again with an expression like a befuddled bear: intelligent, thoughtful, determined to understand what it is that’s so suddenly changed. I see him taking in the way I’m dressed—plum-colored slacks, sweater without a pill on it, wine-red turtleneck I bought yesterday, downtown. Same old scarred boots, though. I wonder what he thinks of that.

  Fury sparks slowly in his eyes, then, and they focus hard on Valens.

  “What the hell did you do to her, fils de pute?”

  I hold up my hand to stem the flow of that anger, trying to hide how gratified I am by it. Before I can say anything, Valens interposes himself smoothly. “She’s sick, Castaign. That’s why she’s here.”

  An unfamiliar voice cuts in. It must be the woman, Gabe’s coworker. “And we talk about her like she’s not here because? …” And I can’t decide if what I feel is gratitude or irritation, but whatever it is, it’s enough to get me hauling myself up straight and not leaning on Valens’s goddamned arm any longer.

  “Because I’m the patient,” I answer, and take a step forward to extend my hand to her, not letting any of them see how badly I want to sway on my feet. From the look Gabe gives me, he guesses. My face must be livid and shining with cold sweat between the scars. “Jen Casey.” I can’t remember the last time I introduced myself to somebody by my right name.

  “Elspeth Dunsany,” she answers, switching the coffee to her left hand. Her right is warm and dry as her smile. Golden hazel eyes crinkle at the corners, eerily pale in a face darker than my own. She’s compact, vigorous,
a little chunky. “Are you a programmer?”

  “I’m a pilot,” I answer. “Or at least I was.” Valens clears his throat behind me—shut up, Casey—which makes me curious.

  I’ve always been smarter than I look. And Valens wouldn’t have sent Barb half a thousand miles to collect me if he could get the results he wants from whatever teenage soldiers might volunteer for the project just to get the—wetware, Valens called it.

  Charming.

  So there’s got to be something about me that’s special. Enhanced reflexes? Just bloody not being dead? I know Valens isn’t telling me a third of the truth, but I can deduce that he needs me at least as much as I need him. What’s he going to do if I piss him off? Send me home to die?

  What the hell. I have nothing to lose but my life.

  I keep talking. “Are you working on the flight simulations for the VR program?”

  “Some work in VR, but …” her voice trails off, and I can tell from the direction of her gaze that she’s looking at Valens. Score. “… nothing like that,” she finishes lamely.

  Interesting. He has some kind of hold over her, too. Her, me, Gabe. Same old Valens.

  Pity for him I ain’t the same old Jenny. The last time we tangled, he used Gabe to control me. I’m willing to bet that’s the whole reason he’s offered Gabe this much-needed job. Which no doubt comes with health insurance that will cover what the government won’t do for Genie. Enzyme therapy is fucking expensive.

  I’m not twenty-five anymore, Frederick Valens. And you’d be wise not to forget it.

  “Gabe,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Dinner tonight? Bring the girls, my treat.”

  “Sure,” he says, but then he glances over at Elspeth Dunsany almost as if checking to see if she minds. Not quite asking permission—Gabe would never do that. But seeing if maybe he needs to make it up to her later.

  Elspeth’s emotion is unreadable behind the grin she gives me. “I hope once you two old friends have caught up, I’ll be invited to the next one.”