Company Town (36 page)

“You poor dumb fuck.” She spat at him. “You really fucked this one up, b'y. No gold watch for you. They can just take your Murder Drone of the Month plaque right off the wall.”

Branch wiped the blood and bile away from his mouth. “You're just as spiteful and stupid and small as your sisters,” he said. “You have no vision. No sense of what you're doing.”

Hwa grinned through the blood. She let her accent go just as thick. “Aye? The way I reckon, a chain of murders, a major explosion, and a reactor leak t'ain't so great for business. So youse tell me: how's Joel supposed to make all the right investments, when he's busy cleaning up this mess? Won't all that capital be lining the pockets of all yourn attorneys? Because I think the people of this town have grounds for a lawsuit. I think the Lynches might have to sell some assets. Maybe do a wee reshuffling.”

Branch backed away. He turned to the countdown clock on the display. Sat down on a swivel chair. Watched the numbers. Watched the levels of radiation climb up to the red zone on the meter.

“I've failed,” Branch said. “I'm a failure.”

“You get used to it. Eventually. In my experience.”

“I failed to close the loop,” he murmured. “The strange loop.”

“Eh?”

“You are the strange loop,” he said. “The disorder. In the literature, in the modules, when we train for this job, that is how you are called. The Disorder. Our job is to order you.”

Hwa still had a chuckle in her bruised stomach. “Cute. I'll tell me mum about that one. When I see her in Hell.” She watched the levels climbing up and up and up. She didn't feel so good. She felt hot. Feverish. Slow. Branch flickered like a candle. Like he was having trouble keeping himself together. She had to ask him now. “Why the birthday cards?”

“What?”

“The threats,” Hwa said. “Why did you send the death threats if you knew they'd hire me to protect Joel?”

Branch gave her his last condescending sneer. “We didn't.”

The room filled with light.

 

19

Human

A sonorous voice. Beautiful. Rich and deep and perfect.

“I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition; that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

Her eyes opened.

Nail sat beside her, reading from a compact. His hair was a little longer than she remembered, but otherwise he looked exactly the same. Pale and handsome and well-dressed. Like nothing in the world had changed.

“Oh. You're awake. The Mistress will be pleased.”

Her mouth worked.

“Yes. This is my speaking voice. I gave it to her as part of our contract. But she is lending it to you, during your convalescence. We are allowed to converse. Would you like some water?”

She was alive.

That was impossible.

She nodded.

Hwa had only the vaguest notion of how radiation poisoning was supposed to work, but she knew she wasn't supposed to still have skin. Or eyes. Or a working set of lungs. She was supposed to be a puddle of melted human cheese. That was how it worked. Right?

The water tasted wonderful.

“Thank … you.…”

“It is quite all right. I live to serve.”

Hwa stretched her feet experimentally. Wiggled her toes. Tapped her fingers on the sheet. She was in the Lynch clinic. Had to be. There was an orchid on the table beside her bed, and a cut-crystal tumbler full of water. The lighting was soft. She waited for the turn of a windmill blade. None came. Five, then. She wrapped her left hand around the glass and brought the glass to her lips.

Her hand was wrong.

Clean.

Pure.

Unstained.

The tumbler trembled in her hand.

“Yes.” Nail retrieved the tumbler. He set it down on the tray beside her bed. “About that.”

“How…?”

“They're not sure. I've heard them talking, and they seem to think you're augmented. With augments they've never seen before.”

A white room story. That was the term. Mr. Bartel used it for one of the clichés they were supposed to avoid during the creative writing unit. A woman wakes up alone in a white room, unsure of how she got there or even who she is. He was really excited about just getting to teach one of those creative writing units at all. He promised he would edit an anthology of their stories. Share it with other schools. Put the whole thing in the library system where other students in the province could read it. Hwa realized she had never turned in her assignment on time. Never even turned it in at all. Just shrugged and turned the other way and focused on the killings. She probably had so much homework to make up. She was never going to graduate.

She held out her left arm.

Still clean.

She swung her legs off the bed. Stretched them out.

Her left leg was just as pale as her right one.

“Shall I fetch someone?” Nail asked.

“I guess.” He stood, and Hwa grabbed awkwardly for his elbow. He turned. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for sharing your voice with me.”

He beamed. “Rusty will be glad to know you are well. All the Mistress has asked for since you've been here is pasta and bread and cake. It was as though she were trying to eat your weight in comfort food.”

He left. The floor was soft under her feet. Moss. The longer she stood there, the more moss grew around her feet, blue and springy and pleasantly alkaline smelling. She dug her toes into it. Flexed her feet. Her ankles had no pop. Her joints felt flexible and loose.

It was her eyes, she decided. Her eyes were probably so damaged that she had needed new ones. Or contacts. Some ocular prosthesis that would replace her melted eyes and also allow the installation of a filtered perspective. So of course her stain was filtered out. She ran her right hand over her left arm. It didn't feel any different. One long smooth line of skin. No change in density. Just skin. Just like the other arm.

She pinched it. Scratched it. Watched her fingernails drag down the skin, leaving little white lines in their wake. Studiously avoided the mirror near the door.

Branch couldn't be right.

She wouldn't allow him to be right.

Why would I edit it out?

A sound bubbled up to her mouth. A whimper.

“It's your eyes,” she whispered. “It's just your eyes. You're still you.”

Her mother's face would
not
be waiting for her in the mirror.

“Stop being such a pussy.”

She walked over to the mirror with eyes closed. Trailed her fingers along the wall. Stopped when they hit the frame. Entered walking position. Her muscles still felt the same. Light. Ready.

“Ready.”

In the mirror stood the woman she had seen in the crystal ball.

Behind her stood Daniel.

*   *   *

“A beard?” Hwa asked. “Really?”

He stroked his chin. “You don't like it? I sort of like it. I stopped shaving once you were in here. There wasn't much point.”

“I thought you were dead. I
saw
you…” Her voice shook. It was suddenly much deeper and rougher than it should have been. She reached out and touched the beard gingerly. “I watched you
break.…
”

“I know.” He kissed the tips of her fingers. “I watched the footage.”

She spoke in a whisper. “How is this possible? How is
any
of this possible?”

Daniel snapped his fingers at the mirror. She turned to look, and a swarm of machines appeared in the glass. They swam along in schools, occasionally pausing to wriggle their hairs at something before continuing along their merry way. As she watched, one of them divided in two.

“Those look like…” Her head tilted. “The Krebs. But different.” She enlarged the image. They were so delicate. So fluid. Like animals. Like cells. Like something alive.

“That's your blood,” he said. “Our blood.”

She looked up at him. “What?”

He pushed the Krebs to one side and opened another file. This one had his name on it. The same machines were gathering in thick clusters. When he zoomed out, he revealed his rib cage and collarbone. The pattern of broken bones. The machines were literally scabbing over his bones to mend them.

“If you'd just waited,” he said. “Just a minute a longer.”

Hwa shut her eyes. “Please don't make me look at that.”

“All right.” She felt him move behind her. “It's all right. You can look.”

When her eyes opened, the Krebs were back. But he zoomed the image out, and there was her name on top of the file. The Krebs danced across her whole body. But they were most densely concentrated in the place where her stain used to be. They were there, under her skin, a second stain of proteins and circuits.

Hwa swallowed. “How? When?” She turned to him. “Did you let them do this? Why would you let them do this?”

She didn't bother waiting for an answer. She left the mirror. Found the water glass. Drained it. Contemplated the orchid in its slender vase. It looked like something Séverine would have chosen.

“It's not that simple,” he was saying. “But if you want to blame me, you can. You should. It is my fault. If you want to think of it as a fault. As a bad thing.”

He laced their hands together. “I didn't mean to give this to you. I didn't think it could … spread. I've been careful. Every single time. Until now. But with you, with us…”

Heat flooded her. The memory was still fresh, as though it had happened the night before and not months ago. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

He nodded. “I didn't donate my regimen to you. The Krebs were already working on you, when we found your body. As far as the doctors can tell, they entered you when we…” He pursed his lips. “Probably through a tear in your tissues. You did bleed. A little. That's all it takes, apparently.”

“You
spread it
to me?”

He nodded. “You're a changeling, now. Like me.”

Just like Branch. Just like how he'd spread his devices to Calliope and Sabrina and Eileen. What had killed them had saved her. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair at all. She didn't deserve to be alive, any more than they deserved to be dead. And if she had chosen differently, if she had just held out, they would still be alive. For the first time since their deaths, she allowed herself to miss them. She would never hear Eileen's gossip. She would never nag Layne about a BDJ question. She would never see the delighted triumph in Sabrina's eyes as she landed a solid punch on the heavybag. They were gone and it was her fault. Both her eyes filled with tears. Daniel reached for her and she scrubbed the tears away before he could say anything.

Hwa sighed. “So you're saying my whole body is full of proprietary technology? You're saying I went from pure organic to…” She opened her stainless hands. They felt stronger than before. The skin was more even than she remembered. Softer. More elastic. The nails smooth. Almost buffed. No calcium deposits. No scars. No swollen knuckles. No evidence that she'd ever been a fighter. No evidence she'd ever been the person she knew herself to be. “To whatever the fuck this is.”

He shook his head. “Don't. Don't do this.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Please don't do this.”

“Everything that made me who I am is gone.”

“Is that what you think?” He kissed her very gently, over her left eye. “That all you are is a disorder?”

“Branch said I was.”

Hwa sank down to the bed. Looked at the orchid in its glass. The order of the room. Everything clean. Nothing out of place. She
was
disorder. That was Branch's whole point. She was the disorder that needed to be ordered. The one hair out of place. The one thing set askew in the plan. That was what set her apart. What made her, in some incredibly fucked-up way, special in their cosmic simulation. A wild card. A black swan. Lightning in a bottle. And for a moment, just knowing that had been enough. Even if it wasn't meant to last. Even if her life was about to end. All the seizures. All the bullshit. It was all worth it. Just to be the one who stuck it to that bastard. It was the kind of death that deep down she'd always wanted. And now she was alive.

“He said, I'm the only one to make it. That I'm not even supposed to be here. All the others…”

“The others?”

“The other versions of me. In other times, I guess. Other branches of possibility. He said I'm the only one who's ever made it.”

Daniel reached up. He held her face in his hands. “Then clearly, this is the best of all possible worlds.” He kissed her forehead.

She was about to tease him for being such a sap, but as she drew breath to do so, the door opened. Joel stood there, flanked by Silas, Katherine, and members of his staff. He wore a suit. He looked taller. Broader. How long had it been? What else had changed?

“Miss Go,” he said in measured tones. Hwa's heart sank. A few weeks without her and he'd become the vessel his father had always wanted. Perhaps Branch really had won. “I think we can continue this conversation later,” he told his siblings. “Silas, can you please tell your people to put that order through?”

“Sure thing,” Silas said.

“Katherine, I want to go over the infrastructure tour, on the Iceland trip,” Joel said. “I need to know who is who. Can we go over that, later, please?”