“Don’t look like that, son. I don’t mean me personally, Jimmy Hubbley. Or even this brigade. But y’all didn’t think this duragem dissembler got loose by accident, did you?”
That’s when I noticed the walls, nanotech perfect. And I saw again Miri’s printouts, unable to pinpoint a single source for the dissembler leak.
Hubbley said, serious again, “There’s a lot of us. Y’all need a lot of people to make a revolution. We got the will to decide what kind of country we want to live in, and we got the idea. The technology.”
I choked out, “What technology?”
“All of it. Well, maybe not all. But a lot. Some nonorganic nano, some low-level organic nano.”
“The duragem dissembler… How did you…”
“Now, y’all will learn that in good time. For today, just know that we did. And it’s going to bring down the false government, same as the Revolution brought down the British. We capture the technology we need, like Marion captured guns right from the enemy. Why, in 1781, right on the Santee River—”
“But you killed the GSEA agents—”
“Genemod,” Hubbley said briefly. “Abominations against nature. Hail, using nanotech to fight the good fight — that ain’t no different than using the cannon of General Marion’s time. But to use it on human beings — that’s a whole different war, son. That ain’t right. People ain’t things, and shouldn’t be treated like things, with their parts altered and retrofitted and realigned. They ain’t vehicles, nor factories, nor robots. The donkeys done been treating people like things way too long in this country. Liver people.”
“But you can’t just allow organic genetic engineering on microorganisms and expect that it won’t happen on people, too. If you allow one—”
“Hail, no.” Hubbley stood and flexed his legs. “It ain’t the same thing at all. It’s all right to kill germs, ain’t it? Even to kill animals to eat? But it ain’t all right to kill human beings. We make that distinction just fine in our laws about killin’, don’t we? What in hail thinks we cain’t make them in our laws about genemod engineering?”
I said, before I knew I was going to, “You can’t hide from the GSEA!”
Hubbley gazed at me mildly from those watery blue eyes. “Huevos Verdes does, don’t it?”
“That’s different. They’re Supers—”
“They ain’t gods. Or even angels.” He stretched his back. “Fact is, Mr. Arlen, we been hidin’ from the GSEA for nearly five years now. Oh, not all of us. The enemy has killed quite a few good soldiers so far. And we inflicted our casualties, too. But we’re still here. And the duragem dissembler’s out there bringin’ the whole war to a hastier conclusion.”
“But you can’t hide from Huevos Verdes!”
“Well, that’s tougher to call. But the fact is, I suspect we’re not. I suspect Huevos Verdes knows a whole lot more about us than the GSEA. Stands to reason.”
Miranda had never said. Not to me. Jonathan had never said, nor Christy, nor Nikos. Not to me. Not to me.
“Up till now, we ain’t been strong enough to take on Huevos Verdes as well, so it’s been a good thing they’ve kind of ignored us. But it’s all different now. Not even Huevos Verdes can stop the way this government’s losing control, now that the duragem dissembler is beyond stopping.”
“But—”
“That’s enough for now,” Hubbley said, not unkindly. “We got to get movin’ now. Those agents’ deaths’ll cause all hail to bust loose. The company ought to be just about ready to go, and y’all are goin’ with us. But don’t y’all worry none, Mr. Arlen — they’ll be plenty of time for you and me to talk. I know all this is new to you, because y’all did have a faulty education. And y’all been spendin’ time with Sleepless, who ain’t even human no more. But y’all will learn better. Cain’t help it, once you see the real war up close. And we owe you that. You been a real help to us.”
I only stared at him. A sickening flood of shapes swept to the edge of my mind, a wave poised to flow over me, swamp me.
“I’ve been—”
“Well, of course,” Hubbley said, in what felt like genuine astonishment. “Didn’t you already guess that? Your last concert, ‘The Warrior,’ has been leavin’ people feelin’ far more independent and ready to fight with will and idea. Y’all done that, Mr. Arlen. It probably warn’t what y’all intended, but that’s what’s been hap-penin’. Since y’all began giving The Warrior,’ our recruitment’s up three hundred percent.”
I couldn’t speak. A door opened and Campbell loomed over me.
“Hail,” Hubbley said, “two months ago we even got a cell of genemod scientists who joined us voluntarily, without no torture or nothing. You been making all the difference in the world, son.
“And now, we really got to move out. Campbell will carry you. If that hip starts to hurtin’ too much, y’all be sure to holler. We got more painkillers, and where we’re going, there’s a doctor. We sure don’t want you to suffer, not with all the help you been givin’ us, Mr. Arlen, sir. You been on the right side. It just takes some folk a little longer than others to know it.
“Handle him careful, Campbell. . . there. Here we go.”
Campbell carried me across the swamp for about two hours, as near as I could tell. It’s hard to be certain about the time because I kept blacking out. He had slung me over his shoulder like a sack of soy, but I could tell he was trying to be gentle. It didn’t help. We walked single file, about ten of us, led by Jimmy Hubbley. Hubbley knew the swamps. His people sometimes walked on narrow ridges of semi-firm land with mucky pools on either side, the kind of quicksand that as a child I had seen swallow a man in less than three minutes. Other times we sloshed through brackish water alive with turtles and snakes. Everybody wore hip-high waders. They kept close to dense tangles of vines, under gray moss dripping from trees. That wouldn’t make any difference, of course, as soon as the GSEA brought in a tracking ’bot, which does ten times better than the best hound at picking up pheromones, not only following their trail but analyzing their content. I expected to be back with the GSEA in two hours.
Then I saw that the last person in line was the woman, Abigail, who had blown up the rescue plane with a rocket launcher. She had left that at the outstation. Instead she carried a curved, dull-colored machine like a metal bow, holding it above her head, parallel to the ground. I knew what it was: a Harrison Pheromone Obliterator. It released molecules that homed in on any molecular traces of humans and neutralized them. It was classified military equipment, which I happened to know about only through Huevos Verdes, and there was no way the Francis Marion Freedom Outpost could have one. But they did.
For the first time, I began to believe Jimmy Hubbley that his movement was not made up of isolated fanatics.
Abigail was pregnant. With her arms raised above her head, I could clearly see the curve of her belly under her jacks, maybe five months along. As she walked she hummed to herself, a happy tuneless little song. Her thoughts looked miles and landscapes away.
The swamp got thicker and hotter. Branches scratched my face where I hung, helpless, over Campbell’s shoulder. Snakes as thick as a man’s wrist slithered into shallow pools. A log heaved up, slid beneath black water, and disappeared in a row of hissing bubbles. Alligator.
I closed my eyes. The humid air was thick with the waxy-white scent of ghost orchids, growing on the trunks of pop-ash trees. They weren’t parasites. They lived on air.
Insects sang and stung, a constant cloud.
“Well, here we are,” Jimmy Hubbley said. “Mr. Arlen, sir, how are y’all faring?”
I didn’t answer. Every time I looked at him, my mind filled with the shapes of hatred, cold and rotating like knives. Leisha was dead. Jimmy Hubbley had killed Leisha Camden. She was dead. I was going to destroy him.