And it all became news. It all became history. Sarah was doing her job flawlessly—but for the record, the three of us willingly steam-rollered flat every unspoken fear, every qualm, every trace of doubt that the world could ever be different from the nets’ pale imitation of it.
We were almost finished—I was on the verge of recounting the events in the ambulance—when my notepad chimed. It was a coded trill for a call to be taken only in private. If I answered, the communications software would shift to deepest encryption, automatically—but if the notepad sensed other people within earshot, it would refuse to maintain the connection.
I excused myself, and left the tent. The sky showed a faint wash of gray over the stars. Music and laughter still flooded out of the square behind the markets, and people were still roaming the camp, but I found a secluded spot nearby.
De Groot said, “Andrew? Are you all right? Can you talk?” She looked haggard and tense.
“I'm fine. A little bruised by the quake, that’s all.” I hesitated; I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question.
“Violet died. About twenty minutes ago.” De Groot’s voice faltered, but she steeled herself and pushed on wearily. “No one knows exactly why, yet. Some kind of trap sprung by one of the anti-viral magic bullets—maybe an enzyme in concentrations too weak to detect, which converted it into a toxin.” She shook her head, disbelieving. “They turned her body into a minefield. What did she ever do to deserve that? She tried to find a few simple truths, a few simple patterns to the world.”
I said, “They’ve been caught. They’ll stand trial. And Violet will be remembered… for centuries.” It was all hollow comfort, but I didn’t know what else to say.
And I’d thought I’d been prepared for this news, ever since I’d heard she was in coma—but it still came like a sudden blow to the head… as if the anarchists’ astonishing reversal of fortune, and Sarah’s miraculous reappearance, had somehow rewritten the odds. I covered my eyes with my forearm for a moment, and saw her sitting in her hotel room beneath the skylight, raked by the sun, reaching out and taking my hand. Even if I'm wrong… there has to be something down there. Or nobody could even touch.
De Groot said, “How soon can you get off the island?” She sounded more than a little concerned—which was touching, but strange. We’d hardly been that close.
I laughed dismissively. “Why? The anarchists have won, the worst is over. I'm sure of that.” De Groot did not look sure at all. “Have you heard something? From… your political contacts?” There was a sudden chill in my bowels, like the disbelief I’d felt before each new spasm from the cholera: It can’t be happening again.
“This isn’t about the war. But—you’re stuck, aren’t you?”
“For now. Are you going to tell me what this—?”
“We had a message. Just after Violet died. A threat from the Anthrocosmologists.” Her face contorted with anger. “Not the ones on the boat, obviously. So it must have come from the ones who killed Buzzo.”
“Saying what?”
“Shut down all of Violet’s calculations. Present them with a verified audit trail for her supercomputer account, proving that all the records of her TOE work have been erased without being copied or read.”
I made a sound of derision. “Yeah? Where do they think that will get them? All her methods and ideas have been published already. Someone else will duplicate everything… in a year at the most.”
De Groot seemed indifferent to the ACs’ motives; she just wanted an end to the violence. “I’ve shown the message to the police, here—but they say there’s nothing anyone can do, with Stateless the way it is.” She caught herself; she still hadn’t spelled it out. “The threat is, we post the audit trail within an hour—or they kill you.”
“Right.” I could see the logic of it: De Groot, and Mosala’s family, would all be too well guarded to threaten directly—but they’d hardly sit back and let the extremists kill me, after I’d helped get Violet off Stateless.
“The calculations were already completed when I logged on—lucky Violet programmed her net broadcast to wait until the hour.” De Groot laughed softly. “Her idea of making it a formal occasion. We’ll do what they’ve asked, of course. The police advised me not to call you—and I know the news does you no good—but I still thought you had a right to be told.”
I said, “Don’t do anything, don’t erase a single file. I’ll call you back, very soon.” I broke the connection.
I stood there in the alley for several seconds, listening to the wild music, chilled by the wind, thinking it through.
When I walked into the tent, Sarah and Akili were laughing. I’d meant to invent an excuse to get Sarah out quietly, so we could both just walk away—but it struck me at that moment that it would do me no good. Buzzo had been killed with a gunshot, but their favored methods were biological. If I fled, the chances were that I’d be carrying the weapon inside me.
I reached down and grabbed Akili by the front of vis jacket and sent ver sprawling backward onto the floor. Ve stared up at me, faking shock, anguish, bewilderment. I knelt down over ver and punched ver in the face, clumsily—surprised that I’d even got this far; I was no good at violence, and I’d expected ver to defend verself with all the agility ve’d demonstrated on the boat, long before I’d lain a finger on ver.
Sarah was outraged. “What are you doing? Andrew!” Akili just stared at me speechless, hurt, still playing dumb. I lifted ver half off the ground with one hand—ve barely resisted—then punched ver again.
I said evenly, “I want the antidote. Now. Do you understand? No more threats to De Groot, no files destroyed, no negotiations—you’re just going to hand it over.”
Akili searched my face, clinging to the charade, protesting innocence with vis eyes like some wrongfully accused lover. For a moment, I wanted to hurt ver badly; I had idiot visions of some bloody catharsis, washing the pain of betrayal away. But the thought of Sarah recording it all kept me in check; I never found out what I would have done, if we’d been alone.
And my rage slowly ebbed. Ve’d infected me with cholera, slaughtered three people, manipulated my pathetic emotional needs, used me as a hostage… but ve hadn’t, remotely, betrayed me. It had all been an act from the start; there’d never been anything between us to be sacrificed to the cause. And if the solace I thought we’d given each other had only been in my head, then so was the humiliation.
I’d live.
Sarah said sharply, “Andrew!” I glanced at her over my shoulder; she was livid, she must have thought I’d gone insane. I explained impatiently, “That call was from Karin De Groot. Violet’s dead. And now the extremists have threatened to kill me if De Groot doesn’t trash the TOE calculations.” Akili mimed grave consternation; I laughed in vis face.
“Okay. But what makes you think Akili’s working for the extremists? It could be anyone in the camp—”
“Akili is the only person besides me and De Groot who knew about Mosala’s joke on the ACs.”
“What joke?”
“In the ambulance.” I’d almost forgotten; I hadn’t reached the end of the story for Sarah. “Violet programmed software to write up the calculations, polish the TOE, and dispatch it over the net. And the work’s all completed; De Groot only caught it before it was sent.”