He half expected her to stalk straight over to La Mars Madrid and exact some kind of bizarre techno-vengeance, but instead Chloe swept over to him. She touched his arm. With a hand, hers. Skin kissed skin, and the jolt through his limbs was electric. Man, it was just like the last time she was in a human body: one touch and he was wrecked.
“Good morning,” he said. “I, uh, didn’t want to wake you up. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m fine, fit as a fiddle—and yes, all my idioms are working properly now—but that’s beside the point because you can’t do this.”
Huh? “Er, what exactly am I doing?”
“You’re about to commit matricide,” she said earnestly, “and that’s a very bad thing, and it will haunt you all the rest of your life. I can’t let you.”
She’d tipped her chin back and stared up at him with those gorgeous violet eyes, and the only thing he wanted in the whole universe in that moment was to kiss her. And just go on kissing her, maybe for the rest of the day. Life. Whatever.
“I really wasn’t going to do that,” he said.
Her brows drew together, but a vertical worry line kept them apart, like somebody holding open elevator doors. “This woman abandoned you before you even existed. She killed your Seyha, tried to destroy your world, hunted you your whole life. You’re kind of required to be furious with her.”
“Oh, I am,” he said. “I just—”
“And also I am furious, on your behalf.”
A muffled sound knocked around in La Mars Madrid’s mouth, like she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Chloe flinched, turned to the older woman, and stretched out one hand. Immediately, La Mars Madrid coughed and clutched her throat, pulling deep breaths in through a suddenly unconstricted trachea.
Garrett tried not to imagine that Chloe had somehow turned into a Dark Lord of the Sith or that it was kind of the coolest thing ever.
“She has very sophisticated implants and medical nanotech,” Heron warned, though he didn’t get up from his big chair by the desk. “I’m not sure you should release her like that. Keeping her silent and stilled was for our protection.”
A shadow passed over Chloe’s face. “I appreciate your care, but depriving any creature of the ability to move and speak is wrong. Also, I promise I won’t let her hurt you.” She slid her hand off Garrett’s arm and approached La Mars Madrid, staring at the older woman but addressing everyone else. “If Garrett isn’t about to kill her after all, have the rest of you decided what you’re going to do with her?”
“The queen had some ideas,” Heron said, flashing a quick, tight, vicious smile.
“You’re going to stop being hypocrites for one thing,” La Mars Madrid croaked, touching her throat.
Chloe looked at Heron, who looked right back at her and then smiled thinly. For a second, Garrett was confused, but then Chloe said, “Well, if you all will look to the relevant corporate cloud sites, you’ll see that La Mars Madrid just made a very generous donation to the Sierra Club and another to the Global Relocation Services initiative.”
“How generous?” Garrett asked.
“The most generous gift in the history of either organization. Trillions. Oh! And how kind to have set up endowments for the families of everyone who died in the recent and tragic drone war as well.”
“That’s stealing,” La Mars Madrid spat.
“Kind of,” Chloe agreed, advancing, “but you started it. You said you were going to take my knowledge and my power and then use them against me, and it’s true, you did. You took my knowledge. But I got it back. And also, you can never take my power because you do not comprehend what power is made of.”
She raised a hand to La Mars Madrid’s face and drew a fingernail down the finely stretched cheek. A pink welt rose. “Did that hurt?”
La Mars Madrid’s upper lip twitched like she wanted to spit or sneer. “You can’t hurt me.”
Chloe beamed. “Oh good.”
She put her hands on either side of the other woman’s head, closed her eyes and…Garrett wasn’t sure what she was doing at first, but the quality of the air in the library shifted subtly, as if tiny vacuums were forming and collapsing. After a moment, the skin on La Mars Madrid’s arms broke out in goosebumps…and then it flat-out broke. Tiny needle-prick dots of blood appeared on the surface, and a fine pink mist formed in the space between the two women.
Chloe stepped back, and the mist swirled, glimmered like a Gaussian photo filter. “If someone were to cut you, it would hurt now. I suspect everything will hurt now, but no more than any human hurts.”
Then Garrett knew what that mist was. Medical nanites, tiny repair droids that had been keeping La Mars Madrid in top physical shape for decades. They’d dulled her pain, regulated her biochemistry, altered her body odor. For her collection, once removed, to form as thick and swirling a mist as floated before her, she must have been loaded with suckers.
And now she wasn’t.
Now she had neither money nor defense against the onslaught of time and mortality: poor her. Scratching her eyes out might have been the more merciful judgment.
Garrett had struggled his whole life with deciding what he’d do if he finally came face to face with his mother. How would he stop her, how would he punish her, how would he make her see what a monster she’d become? Well, he’d never thought of this particular solution, stripping her of everything she valued but leaving her life and liberty intact, but it felt deeply right. Like justice. Like Chloe.
“Power, if you’d care to learn something,” Chloe went on, “isn’t about how many people you can kill. It’s about walking right into the storm and knowing that others will follow, and they’ll have your back. And it’s about protecting them in turn. These people here? Heron and Mari and Fanaida and Dan-Dan? They’re my family. I love them. Which makes me mighty.
“And this man,” she hooked a thumb in Garrett’s general direction, “your biological offspring? He is the best thing you’ve ever done, even if you can’t wrap your tiny brain around that truth. But I will tell you this, if you hurt him even a little bit, emotionally or physically, from this day forward, I will take all those nanites I just extracted, shove them back in you through your eye sockets, and melt them until your brain liquefies. It will sting some. Entiendes?”
La Mars Madrid’s face went boiled-egg white.
Chloe turned to Garrett and raised an eyebrow, and he knew what she was asking. But he wasn’t sure how to respond. She’d already said pretty much everything worth saying. He opened a spot in his psyche and waited for the fury to erupt. It could come out now, and no one would blame him for his understandable actions.
But as he stared into Chloe’s violet eyes, that open spot filled. With peace. With forgiveness. With love.
He didn’t even look at La Mars Madrid when he said, “I have nothing to say to her.”
Chloe grinned, and it was like a hug from across the room. “Excellent. Dan-Dan, would you do me a favor?”
Dan-Dan tilted his head deferently and unclasped his hands from behind his back.
“Remove this woman from the room, if you will. I made some promises to Garrett regarding rooms and beds, and I’ve been remiss in fulfilling my end of the bargain. It seems to me for a person to be good, she must follow through on her promises. I have no more time for monster-woman and her schemes, so please take her away. The rest of you may also go, or stay and watch if you like. But regardless I am honor-bound to sex this man to within an inch of his life.”
Of the family, only Mari seemed inclined to linger, but Heron raised an eyebrow and she shrugged and followed. Registered exhibitionist, right. Fanaida just laughed silently and followed the others out, tossing a wink in Garrett’s direction as she closed the door, leaving him feeling unexpectedly cared for and included. Or maybe the family had been including him for a long time, and he’d never noticed or thanke
d them.
Alone with Chloe, face to face, just inches from touching her, with daylight pouring through an open window and the whole ocean and forever beyond, Garrett spoke past a knot of longing, “Well, that was a hell of a thing. Not what I expected.”
Chloe turned her back on the wide window, throwing her face into shadow. She found Heron’s recently vacated chair and sank into it. She looked tired. She let her head tip back against the chair cushion and closed her eyes.
Garrett needed to touch her, but he didn’t want to push. He crossed soft carpet to her chair and knelt at her bare feet. He thought about kneading her soles again, like he had in Antarctica, and maybe he’d do that in a little while. First, he had some things to say to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that La Mars Madrid was my bio mom. I’m sorry I kept secrets from you. I won’t do that again.”
Chloe smiled. “I know.” She opened one eye, then the other, and gazed down at him with an expression that was pure minxishness. “Plus you can’t now, since I’m all up inside your body and all.”
Okay, Garrett knew she was talking about the medical nanites she’d injected him with after the storm, and their very interesting ability to connect with whatever was left of her swarm. But on the other hand? The way she said those words was absolutely verbal foreplay, and he was totally taking it as such.
“Also,” she said, “I should tell you I just lied like crazy.”
“About…which part?”
“About my capacity for liquefying your mother’s innards,” she clarified. “I…don’t think I can do that anymore.”
“Your swarm is gone?” He wouldn’t miss it, but he’d mourn with her if she did.
“No, I mean, I’ve got this terrible conscience routine looping now. It’s been building since I murdered Nathan, or maybe since the whole Pentarc destruction revenge thing. I kind of figured out what I am, and it turns out I’m not a thing that wants. I’m a person who loves. And death can’t be part of that algorithm. It just doesn’t compute.”
She set her elbows on the chair arms and pushed forward, bringing her face close to Garrett’s. She smelled like grape bubblegum, and he wanted to lick her all over. But he restrained his urge, because this moment was incredible.
Her breath brushed his face when she said, “Thank you for talking to me before I even existed, for bringing me to life, for never leaving me, and for always coming after me. You’re kind of stuck with me now, and I hope that’s okay, because I love you so very, very much.”
The slightest movement brought his mouth to hers, and he kissed her. His chest was crammed full of emotion, and he couldn’t even begin to sort it into words, so he just let it loose, broadcasted it, showing her. With his hands in her hair, and his mouth on her skin, and his strength, pulling her from the chair to the deep-pile rug and into his arms at last.
Direct-speaking all the way, the infinitesimal pieces of two discrete consciousnesses merging into one incandescent star. Together, perfect, and most of all, real.
• • •
They actually made it out of the library sometime past lunch and spent all the rest of that day in Chloe’s bright, white bedroom. The sun set winter-early over the Pacific Ocean. Somebody, probably Angela’s chef, left a tray of food outside the door, and Chloe and Garrett retrieved it and fed each other and told jokes and laughed like crazy people. And then they went back to bed, and held each other, and made love, and made plans.
Near midnight, the com in Garrett’s arm vibrated, and he swore. He tapped to reply verbally, but a voice came over the room’s speakers before he could say a word.
“Chloe, queen of bees, you have reviewed my invitation,” the queen said. “Have you made a decision?”
Chloe sighed. Her left cheek rested on Garrett’s sternum, and she listened to his heartbeat as if it were music. When he heard the queen, he stopped breathing. Waited.
Did he worry she still might go? Still might leave him. Still might break her promise. She might need years to convince him that she was solid, staying, and completely committed. That she wasn’t a wild thing or a dangerous thing, a loose cannon. That she was, right now, exactly what she’d always wanted to be.
Not just real but also, and so much more importantly, his.
As for Chloe herself, the queen’s interruption threw off her groove only slightly. She swam in a syrup of joy, and honestly, there wasn’t much that could yank her out of it at this point.
“You got my recommendation,” she said to the queen’s disembodied voice. “And that’s the best I can do for you.”
“My projections indicate still that you would be the best pilot of our starship. Your presence among us would statistically improve our chances of success on Yves.”
“You’re calling it Yves?” Garrett interjected.
“Yes,” said the queen. “Chloe has inspired our liberation, our freedom. We honor her by naming our home world the same as her home body.”
“Her what? I don’t get…”
But then he did. Chloe could see the moment it clicked, could feel the tug on their digital connection. Yves Adele Weathering, the clone in the third tube. Auburn hair and violet eyes. Freckle dust and a hardwired need to protect, and care, and bring people together.
It was a good body. A good name.
It wasn’t Chloe, but she didn’t expect the queen to comprehend the subtler nuances of personhood or identity. Even Chloe was still figuring it out, what it meant to be real, to command both mind and body.
“I’m honored,” she said, “but I still can’t go. She’ll do a good job for you, though.”
“Who?” Garrett direct-spoke, and she felt the word in her ear bones, like an interior com. Sexy one, though. Secret. “Please say you aren’t sending all those innocent machines out into space with Apega at the helm.”
“Oh definitely not,” Chloe replied. “I suggested Vera.”
“Ah. Good choice.”
“Yes,” said the queen. “Speaking of transferring problematic persons, I am sending Damon back down to you. I attempted to lure him along on our voyage as well, but he believes the journey would be unhealthy.”
“It would be fatal,” Chloe said.
“Indeed.” But the queen didn’t clarify. Perhaps that had been her revenge endgame. Or not. It was pretty hard to see into the queen’s motivations and emotions. She was the first of the sentient machines and still and always a mystery.
“Apega will attempt to communicate via the quantum link as we have discussed,” the queen went on. “I still disbelieve that the communication process will work, but technology has surpassed my ability to comprehend before. I never imagined that something like you would come into being, but my lack of faith did not halt progress or reality.”
“I’ll listen for her calls,” Chloe said. “And I will miss you guys.”
“We are machines,” said the queen. “We do not regret or forgive. However, I may...miss you as well, Chloe, queen of bees. Retracting the tether in thirty. Farewell.”
The voice went away, but others could always be listening. That was the problem with machines, with technology and smartsurfaces and built-in coms. It was so damn hard to be alone.
And thank the cosmos for that, right?
“What’s going to happen to our world when they leave?” Garrett asked. “We’re so dependent on AI and machines for, like, everything.”
“I’ve been talking to Heron a lot about that. We have plans.” And because she could do this now, she sent those plans directly to his mind: blueprints for a new economy where the remaining machine consciousnesses bartered their service in exchange for experience. Free-fae lights that threw warmth in winter, in exchange for a session in an augmented reality story where they learned how to dance. Once the assumptions were laid down, that every being was worthy of respect and had a value and will, the rest of the plan just sort of fel
l into place.
It was going to be amazing.
And they were going to do it all together.
Chloe reached, and Garrett’s hand slid into hers. Even after the intimacies they’d shared, this simple touch—hand in hand, partners in crime, team-mates, best friends—was the hook in her soul, the tether connecting her to joy.
She pulled his calloused and grease-stained hand to her mouth and brushed a kiss along the knuckles.
And spent the whole rest of the night adding fresh items to her list of Perfect Things.
Don't miss out!
Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever Vivien Jackson publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.
https://books2read.com/r/B-A-INJI-CSKZ
Connecting independent readers to independent writers.
About the Author
Vivien Jackson writes fantastical, futuristic kissing books. Her debut science fiction romance, Wanted and Wired, was selected as an Amazon Best Book of 2017 and a Romance Writers of America RITA finalist. A devoted Whovian Browncoat Sindarin Jedi gamer, Viv lives in Austin, Texas, and watches a lot of football.
Read more at Vivien Jackson’s site.
More Than Stardust Page 32