Divergence (23 page)

She paused for a moment, bringing Judy to a sudden stop. Saskia took a deep breath.

“I’m putting Edward in charge of the ship.”

eva 7: 2089

“All done,”
Alexandr said, smoothing down the new plaster. Eva watched the movement of his hands in fascination. There was something pleasing about the easy way he moved the trowel back and forth.

“Will they be able to see me now?” she asked.

“No,” Ivan said, pouring out three glasses of tea.

“Why, do you want them to be able to?” Alexandr asked, stopping his plastering in mid-swoop. He wore a look of mock concern. A lightning flash of drying plaster ran up the wall behind him.

Eva laughed. “I don’t think anyone would want to see me anymore. Not at my age.”

“If you’re sure,” Alexandr said helpfully, “I can have a link in a moment. You can have the whole world watching you as you take a shower.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure the world would really love that,” replied Eva dryly.

Ivan handed her a glass of tea and a lump of sugar. She sipped the tea through the sugar, the way he had taught her. Alexandr tapped at his console and the large screen came on.

“There you are,” he said, “input only.” He took the proffered glass from Ivan, and the three of them sipped as they watched the pictures from the outside world.

Bright white cities were growing from the Earth, their slender spires constructed by humans, the silver scaffolding growing from VNMs. The people that walked the newly minted streets seemed to glow brighter than those Eva had become used to in the RFS. They walked with more confidence; their smiles were deeper; they gave the impression of having a greater love of life.

“You’re not tempted to go back there?” Alexandr asked.

“Not at all,” said Eva.

“Not even to see your daughter?” Ivan wondered. “I would not want to be apart from my Katya for so long.”

“Katya is still young and needs your love. Jessica is a grown woman. She visits me here whenever she can. We can speak whenever we like using the screen.”

“You won’t be doing that for a while,” Alexandr said. “We’ve had to disconnect the outgoing line completely. The VNMs had jerked the bandwidth right up. I’m not sure how we will restrict it again.”

Eva sipped more tea. She was going to miss Alexandr almost as much as she would miss Ivan. She would miss his open smile and his constant attempts to wind her up. He liked to stuff the pockets of her coat with rolled up balls of paper when she wasn’t looking, and then he would act all wide-eyed and innocent when she pulled them out and threw them at him. The young man finished the plastering and dropped his trowel into a plastic self-cleaning container.

“All done,” he said, toasting his work with the glass of tea he held in a plaster-flecked hand.

“I’m going to miss you, Alexandr.”

He gave a wink. “I’ll be back, I’m sure.”

“Don’t you ever think about staying here?” Eva wished that she could take back the words. They made her sound needy and desperate.

Alexandr didn’t seem to notice, though. He sipped slowly as he considered his answer.

“Sometimes,” he pondered. “It seems more honest here, don’t you think? More natural, I mean. I suppose that’s why
you
like it here?”

Eva didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately, Ivan noted her discomfort and changed the subject for her.

“Are you coming with us to the concert tomorrow, Alexandr?”

Alexandr grinned. “Don’t you think I’d be getting in the way? Wouldn’t I cramp your style?”

“We’d like it,” Eva said deliberately. She took Ivan’s big hand in hers as she spoke.

Alexandr shrugged. “If we finish this last job in time. We’ve still got more screens to nullify. The infestation runs right through this building.”

“Where did it come from?” Eva asked, grateful for the change of subject.

For some reason, Alexandr didn’t answer straightaway. He was staring at the older man, as if waiting to see what he had to say. Eva turned to Ivan, head tilted, waiting for an answer.

“From underneath the building,” Ivan said, blushing. “The earth is full of VNMs. They crawl up from beneath the ground. You find them in mines, in caves—they are there all the time, working away beneath our feet.”

“Yes,” Alexandr agreed. He seemed pleased to be allowed to confirm this. “You did not know this, Eva? It is an open secret—”

“It is not a secret,” interrupted Ivan, “but there is no point in worrying people.”

“They run up the walls of the Narkomfin,” Alexandr continued. “They have interfaced with most of the screens, thus attaching themselves to the outside world.” He gave a laugh. “It’s a joke. Social Care are interfacing you to the rest of the world, whether you like it or not, and at the same time they are paying me to come in here and eliminate their machines.”

“They are not all Social Care’s machines,” Ivan said darkly.

Alexandr was stirring his feet uncomfortably at this. He drained his glass with a hurried gulp. “All done. Come on, old man Vanya. Let’s get on or neither of us will get to the concert.”

Ivan quickly packed their tools while Alexandr vacuumed up the tiny pieces of plaster he had chiseled out of the wall in his search for the VNMs’ line of approach.

Ivan took hold of Eva’s hand again.

“Would you like to come around to my apartment tonight? For dinner?”

“Yes,” she said, staring back into his dark eyes. “Will Katya be there?”

“No, she is going out. Her friends have organized a good-bye party of their own.”

I bet they have,
thought Eva.
I bet Paul in particular is hoping to say good-bye.

“I want to say good-bye properly,” Ivan continued, mercifully unaware of her thoughts.

“It’s not good-bye forever. I’m sure you will come back, at least for a visit.”

Ivan nodded and squeezed her hand. She kissed him lightly on the lips and gave a little wave as the two men left.

Eva softly closed the door and returned to the solitude of her lounge. She glanced at the screen on the wall. She didn’t care what Alexandr said, she still felt she was being watched. This was why she had come to the Russian Free States: to get away from the constant surveillance of the Watcher. The Watcher, Earth’s first AI, was shaping the world to its own ends, and sometimes it even asked Eva for advice. Why Eva? She didn’t know. But the responsibility of it had been too great to begin with and had only gotten worse since.

She shivered, remembering. She had met the Watcher. She had been present when it had released the original VNMs into the ground. Now they were sprouting forth—bursting from the fertile Earth—even here. Metal tendrils searching and questing and reaching for the sunlight, binding humanity in their growth as they reached up to the stars.

“Go away!” Eva shouted at nothing in particular. “Leave me alone!”

There was silence, but to Eva’s ears it was the silence of someone choosing not to speak.

Let me sleep in peace,
thought Judy.
I need to rest after last night. Already it is Wednesday morning. Soon I will be on Earth. FE software, Chris, Watcher: leave me alone, whoever you are.

Dreams were forming in her head, resurrecting themselves, like the
Eva Rye
had been reborn inside the metal shell of the
Bailero.

This Narkomfin was built in the late 2030s, one of a series of communal homes modeled on a Russian prototype from the early twentieth century. Eva liked the place, with its yellow plaster walls and curving concrete balconies. She liked to stand inside the building and look out through the front-facing wall of windows, hundreds of square panes in metal frames looking out over the rough grass and untidy hills. She liked to stand outside in the bitter wind and watch the late winter sun burning yellow in the glass’ reflection. She liked the way that she could step out from her apartment and gaze down the long corridor at the round pillars on her left, marching off into the distance. She liked the way the doors of her neighbors were patched and painted with flowers and faces. The smell of warmth and damp clothes drying, of cabbage and beetroot soup, was comforting, even mixed with the sickly tang of used diapers from the adults and children who lived in the crowded rooms. It made the whole place seem homely and welcoming.

And then there were the various sounds: of music playing from speakers or scraped out on a violin; of people laughing or talking or squabbling; the gurgle of the pipes or the hiss of the heating; and the rush of the rain on the windows when she was safe and warm inside, drinking tea or pepper vodka.

But best of all was the press of the people. Eva had lived her early life in South Street and had spent so much time alone in the middle of the city, with only the saccharine comfort of Social Care for company. But here in the Narkomfin she cared and was cared for.

She cooked ham and pease pudding for others, and she shared their kvass and borscht. She accepted rides in the community’s cars and britzkas, and in exchange she pushed the handicapped through the corridors in their wheelchairs. She helped in the nursery and took her turn accompanying those with Down’s syndrome, and in return she was regarded with warmth and respect.

And then she had met Ivan.

He answered the door to his apartment with a sheepish smile and showed her into the neat living area.

“You look so pretty,” he said.

“Thank you,” Eva said, trim in her calf-length brown skirt and yellow patterned sweater. Her white hair was clipped back in a ponytail; on her left wrist she wore the gold chain bracelet her long dead husband had bought her.

On the table in the middle of the room, Ivan had laid out dishes of salted cucumber and little roast potatoes. The shelves were already cleared of his and Katya’s belongings, stacked neatly now in a set of silver cases set in the corner, but truth to tell, the apartment did not feel much emptier than usual. Ivan led a neat, Spartan existence, constantly cleaning up after the mess of his teenage daughter.

They made small talk, and Eva found herself becoming tipsy on black currant vodka. Ivan’s cheeks were flushing red, and she could tell he was getting ready to ask her to accompany him when he left the Russian Free States.

He led her to the table and served her hot salted beef and horseradish, which she ate with special care. Afterwards there was green shchi with sour cream and then honeyed baklava.

“Where did you get all this from?” Eva asked. “It must have cost a fortune.”

“Special occasion,” Ivan said, avoiding the point.

They ate their meal with relish, passing each other morsels to try, wiping imaginary spots of food from each other’s cheeks.

Afterwards, they sat on the thin sofa and drank coffee with warmed-up cream on top. From somewhere below, the sound of a practicing brass band swelled and fell in the background. Finally Ivan got to the point.

“Eva,” he said, flecks of cream on his mustache. “You are a flower that blooms unnoticed in this wilderness. You should not stay here alone. Come back with me, Eva. Come with me.”

Eva felt her dinner settling like a stone inside her.

“You know I can’t,” she replied, looking at her feet. “Why not stay here with me?”

“You know I can’t. Katya should not grow up here. It has been a fine holiday for her, but the people who live in this place have no sense of responsibility. No sense of their duty to each other.”

The lounge was filled with the golden glow of late evening. There was a hazy, otherworldly feeling to their conversation. Ivan made to wipe his mustache with his hand, paused, and drew a handkerchief from his pocket.

“Eva,” he said, wiping himself clean, “what is wrong with the real world? Look at the people whom you have chosen to live with! Dropouts, the handicapped, the stupid, the stubborn.”

“You don’t mean that, Ivan. Your own daughter is handicapped.”

Ivan was hot now with nerves and vodka. “I don’t blame the handicapped,” he said thickly. “But what sort of mother would bring a child with Down’s syndrome to live in this place? Out there in the real world there is medical care and corrective therapy and…and…”

He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the window. “Come back with me, Eva.”

Eva chose her words with a drunkard’s care. “The mother would say that the child she inherits after the cure is not the same as the one before.”

Ivan was dismissive. “Pah! Religion! Only fools listen to that!”

“It’s not
about
religion! Barely anyone here believes—”

“You have been talking to Pobyedov, that fool of a priest, again, haven’t you?”

“Credit me with my own opinions, Ivan,” Eva said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” said Ivan.

The awkward silence was punctuated by a distant fanfare of cornets. One of them was clearly out of tune.

Eva drained her cup. “You could stay here, Ivan. Social Care can’t make you return.”

“What is wrong about you coming with me?” Ivan asked proudly.

“I told you. The Watcher. It is waiting for me.”

Ivan didn’t speak. Eva knew what he was thinking: that the Watcher didn’t exist. He was steeling himself to say it, weighing up the words carefully. She wasn’t going to give him the chance.