Jack looked into the mascara-smudged puddles of Lyle’s eyes and saw only the remnants of an anguished childhood, a rough history. Something that would ease over time.
“You’re not crazy. You’re just dealing with a lot of shit.”
“It is a lot of shit,” Lyle sobbed, her tears growing cold as they ran across Jack’s throat onto the pillows beneath them. “I feel like I’m carrying out her evil plan even though I’m doing what I love.”
In that moment, their relationship went from hot diversion to long-term pact. They talked about moving away together, escaping the cage of academia and doing geneng in the wild. A lot of Zone-educated kids from the Gulf had settled in the northern Federation, and Lyle had friends there. As her tears dried, she talked about how amazing Casablanca was, full of top scientists, and how easy it would be for engineers with their training to find interesting work.
Eventually, Lyle’s dream of Casablanca felt more real to both of them than a future at the Free Lab. When summer came to the prairies, covering the hills outside the city in millions of yellow canola flowers, they decided to leave.
The “checking in” dinner with Krish after their decision did not go well.
“What the fuck are you doing? Throwing away your career again?” Krish scream-whispered angrily. They were at their usual sandwich place, but Krish was self-conscious because a group of his Free Lab students was drinking in the corner and he didn’t want them to hear about his personal life.
“I’m not throwing away my career. I’m going to get a job doing geneng—you know, in the real world beyond academia?”
“That would be a waste.” Krish said each word as if it were its own sentence, looking furious and sad. “Jack, you are brilliant. You could be making a real difference, engineering therapies that will be released under an open license. They’ll never let you do that at some private company.”
“I’m never going to stop making open drugs, Krish.” She was suddenly touched by his concern, and squeezed his hand. “Sequence wants to be free.”
JULY 13, 2144
Jack had to do a little business before she left Saskatoon. Taking a quick walk by the river, she left the remainder of her stash at the top of an archway below the Broadway Bridge. Minutes later, she received an influx of Zone credit, transferred in impeccably anonymous fashion.
She had some money, her truck was charged, and she’d packed her things. Now she’d have to deal with the hard part: getting rid of Threezed.
Jack found him using the Free Lab mobile he’d taken, sitting gracefully on the broad, sunny stairs leading up to the lab. He was still wearing the U of S hoodie, which suddenly aroused her curiosity.
“Where did you get that hoodie?”
“Some kids who run a used clothing store on Broadway gave it to me.” Then he added, casually, “They might give me a job, too. I told them I’d come back with my enfranchisement creds.”
That was a good sign. Jack smiled. “I’ve got the credits to start your franchise. And if you ever want to go to university, I’m sure Med or Krish could help you apply. You could start growing a new identity and be eligible for more jobs later.”
“I know you’re leaving and you don’t want me to come with you.” His face held no expression.
“It’s not safe. I need to disappear.”
“Where else are you going to get what I can give you?” He used his half-sarcastic street hustler voice, stretching back and lifting the bottom of his hoodie to reveal a flat stretch of stomach.
She ruffled his hair and tried to keep smiling. “The IPC is already sending out terrorist alerts on me.”
He stared at his mobile, ignoring her, fingers twitching as if he were texting. Maybe he was.
“I’m going to leave you with enough credit that you’ll be fine as long as you get a job in the next month. I bet you can stay at Med’s. It’s not like she needs a bed, anyway.” She leaned down to kiss him, and he responded with a chaste peck on the lips.
“I’m sure Krish will let you keep that mobile. Secure it and I’ll pass those credits over.”
“OK.” He looked resigned. “Thanks for a good time.”
She headed up the steps to the Free Lab. Checking her messages absently, she saw that Threezed had texted her.
And thanks for killing that asshole who slaved me.
For a second, she was flooded with intense, contradictory feelings—for Threezed, for people long gone. Then the door closed behind her, and Jack forced herself to stare straight ahead at the lab benches. It made no difference whether she loved Threezed or just thought he was a nice fuck. She couldn’t do anything about it either way.
Luckily, Med had distracting news from Yellowknife. It turned out that Retcon worked astonishingly fast. After just a few hours, the three nonplacebo patients had stopped seeking out their addictive processes and were eating again. They had patchy memories of the past few days, but so far no additional cognitive problems had been identified.
The bot wanted to tell Jack more about the specifics of how Retcon affected the patients’ brains, and David wanted to point out all the ways he’d improved on the typical documentation for an open drug. But she couldn’t listen right now. The Retcon Project was entirely open, so she could follow their progress by checking their code repository on the Free Lab server.
Med agreed to keep an eye on Threezed, and Krish told the Free Lab sysadmin to release the mobile to him.
Threezed had two friends to rely on, at least.
That idea kept Jack calm as she eased her truck onto the highway. The sinking sun ripped shadows from everything, creating elongated skeletons of darkness that were almost comically menacing. Bales of switchgrass were curled into perfect rolls at the sides of the road, waiting to be loaded on trains and turned into fuel. Tangles of brush still bore dark clusters of tart Saskatoon berries. The air was warm, but not dusty-hot, and the sky was a sheer, brutal blue softened at its edges by rolling prairie hills. The view caused Jack to ponder, for possibly the thousandth time, why people said Saskatchewan was flat.
Now the city was gone, and nothing but the foam road lay ahead.
14
OTHER TRUE SELF
JULY 12, 2144
When Eliasz’ brain crackled into alertness, his body tried to kill Paladin. Still half-asleep and panicked, Eliasz twitched to activate his perimeter weapons, then savagely grabbed the bot around the neck. The tiny cot creaked as their weight shifted further to one side. Though it was impossible for Eliasz to strangle Paladin, any movement would set off a powerful electrical pulse from Eliasz’ perimeter. Not deadly, but possibly damaging at close range. Paladin held perfectly still, his head even with Eliasz’, analyzing minute shifts in his facial muscles to determine when hysteria began to lose its grip on him.
“I have already analyzed the drug Frankie put in your system, Eliasz,” Paladin vocalized eventually. “It was carefully engineered to have no long-term effects, and is not addictive. In fact, it contains an anti-addictive element that should prevent most people from ever craving it again.”
With a slight tremor, Eliasz withdrew his hands from Paladin’s neck and powered down the weapon. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, buddy,” he whispered. “I knew something like that might happen, and I should have warned you about it.” He sat up, leaning his damp back against the wall, keeping himself carefully positioned behind Paladin’s still-reclining form. “I really need some water.”
The bot took only a second to drop to the floor and achieve a standing position next to the bed. He walked to the small potable water faucet, its shiny spout positioned beneath the gray water showerhead. On a washing stand drilled into the wall over a drain, there was one foam cup. As he filled the cup, he watched Eliasz covering his chest with a light shirt. Paladin decided that he would retain, but rarely access, the file he’d saved of the words Eliasz used to describe Paladin’s always-uncovered body.