“Maybe not—”
“—from across the room. Yes, you’re right, darling.”
She got up from the chair, walked toward him, didn’t stop. Not until she’d pushed him back onto the bed and stretched full-length beside him did she stop. She put her mouth directly over his ear and whispered, “You could act as if you meant it, you know. Monitors.”
Jackson put his arms around her. She was presumably trained for this kind of thing; he was not. He felt embarrassed, ridiculous, exhausted, and horny. Her body felt light and long in his arms, different from Cazie’s tiny voluptuousness. She smelled of Decon fluids and very clean female hair.
She covered his ear with her mouth. “Lizzie left the tribe two weeks ago because she discovered high-intensity monitors there. She traced the data stream back to Sanctuary. They were responsible for the neuropharm. No, don’t react, Jackson. Stay amorous.”
Sanctuary. Responsible for the neuropharm. Why? To keep power from shifting unpredictably to unpredictable Livers.
“More,” Vicki breathed. “Something strange is going on at Brookhaven National Laboratories. An information shutdown. After Sanctuary blew, and Lizzie felt safe dipping again, she went into the government deebees. I’m guessing, but I think Sanctuary tried to extend the neuropharm to the enclaves before somebody blew them up. The newsgrids are assuming it was Selene, but if what Theresa said was true, Selene is empty and Jennifer Sharifi killed Miranda before Sanctuary was hit. So somebody else destroyed Sanctuary. No, don’t show any reaction, Jackson. Act natural.”
Act natural. What the hell was that? Jackson didn’t know anymore. Selene is empty and Jennifer Sharifi killed Miranda and somebody else destroyed Sanctuary. His arms trembled. To still them, he pulled Vicki closer and pressed his mouth against her neck. “And… and Theresa?”
“Get comfortable, Jackson. It’s a complicated narrative. Something has happened to Theresa, and I don’t really understand what. Or how.”
Interlude
TRANSMISSION DATE: May 20, 2121
TO: Selene Base, Moon
VIA: Denver Enclave Ground Station, GEO Satellite C-1663 (U.S.)
MESSAGE TYPE: Unencrypted
MESSAGE CLASS: Class D, Public Service Access, in accordance with Congressional Bill 4892-18, May 2118
ORIGINATING GROUP: “the town of Crawford-Perez”
MESSAGE:
We counted, us, on you, Miranda Sharifi. You was supposed to save us, you. Now if s too late. Three babies are sick, them, already. And it’s your fault.
Who are we supposed to look to now, us? Who?
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: None received
Twenty-three
Theresa awoke from a deep sleep to find herself back in her own bed, with no clear memory of getting there. Had Lizzie Francy brought her home, in a go-’bot? That must have been what happened.
And she, Theresa Aranow, had gotten Lizzie out of jail.
Theresa lay quietly, marveling. Her back ached, her skin itched, her bald head burned. All her muscles felt watery. Yet she had forced herself to leave the apartment, go to a jail, and free a strange girl she’d only seen once in her life. Despite her dread and doubts and anguish, which were no different than they’d ever been. Her brain was no different. Only, somehow, when she pretended to be Cazie Sanders, it was.
Not pretended to be Cazie. Became Cazie. For a little while anyway, and in her own mind.
Did that mean that if she could somehow change her brain, anybody could? Without more syringes from the Sleepless? Who no longer existed.
The nursing ’bot floated to her bed. “Time for physical rehabilitation, Ms. Aranow. Would you like to eat first?”
“Yes. No. Let me think, please.”
Theresa stared at the ’bot. For six weeks she’d heard Jackson or Vicki give it instructions. She knew the words.
“Do a brain scan, please. Print results.”
The ’bot moved into position, extended four screens around her head, and whirred gently. Theresa lay still and thought about the night last autumn when Cazie had brought her friends around, those frightening, cold men wearing rags and bees and breathing from inhalers. When the printout issued from the ’bot, she laid it on her pink-flowered bedspread.
“Now do another brain scan in exactly five minutes.”
“It is not usual to do two scans so close together. Results don’t—”
“Do it anyway. Please. Just this once, all right?”
She was pleading with a ’bot. Cazie would never plead with a ’bot. Theresa closed her eyes and became Cazie. She was striding into the jail, insisting on taking Lizzie home… she was at the Manhattan East Airfield, arranging for a charter plane… she was facing Cazie—Cazie facing Cazie!—telling her to treat Jackson better, telling Cazie what a good person Jackson actually was, telling Cazie off—
The nursing ’bot whirred.
Theresa closed her eyes. When she was just Theresa again, she studied the two printouts, trying to compare them. She didn’t know what the diagrams meant, or the numbers, or the symbols along one side. Most of the words were too hard for her to read. But she could tell that all of those things differed from one paper to the other.
So it was real.
Her brain worked differently when she was being Cazie. When she was choosing for it to work differently. She could choose to change its chemistry, or electricity, or whatever things these scans measured. It was real.
The nursing ’bot said pleasantly, “Time for physical rehabilitation, Ms. Aranow. Would you like to eat first?”
“No. Deactivate. Please.”
Theresa got out of bed. Her legs felt shaky, but she could stand. No time for a shower, though—she didn’t want to waste her strength. Even though she’d look like a scruffy beggar…
She paused. A beggar. Someone with no power to command, no power to hide, no power to trade. No power to look scary with.
She pulled off her nightdress and walked unsteadily to Jackson’s room. From his closet she took pants and a shirt, and used scissors to rip and cut them. From a pot of genemod flowers, big showy purple blooms that Cazie must have given him, Theresa took soil and rubbed it into Jackson’s clothes. The soil was probably genemod for all kinds of things, but it still dirtied the pants and shirt. They were too big for Theresa; she tied them on with string.
When she looked at herself in the mirror, she wanted to cry. Bald burned head, sunken face, dirty ragged clothes, trembling and weak… No, not cry. Exult. This was her gift, and she was finally going to use it.
“Follow me, please?” she told the nursing ’bot, relieved when it did.
She managed to get to the roof, into the aircar, and all the way to the Hudson River camp without being Cazie. She was saving it. When the car had landed out of view of the Liver camp, she took a deep breath and began.
“Ms. Aranow,” said the nursing ’bot on the seat beside her, “it really is time for physical rehabilitation. Would you like to eat first?” Theresa ignored it.
She was a beggar, a beggar with the gift. The gift of needing these frightened people. The gift of needing to be fed, to be welcomed, to be taken in. She was hungry, and weak, and she needed them. She brought the gift of need, to save them.
“Ms. Aranow, it really is—”
She was a beggar, a beggar with the gift. The gift of needing these frightened people. The gift of needing to be fed, to be welcomed—
“Ms. Aranow!”
“Stay here for half an hour, and then follow-me.”