Tess flipped the image away from her eyes, feeling at the same time flattered and exploited. “What does this mean? Why’d you make this copy thing?”
“It means you can never really die, so long as this thing exists. The more you can add to the sim, the more you it’ll be. Leda would say — see, I can’t help modeling her either — that I’ve been copying your soul. I hope you don’t mind.”
“So, you did this because that’s how your memory works?”
“Yeah! Mostly. If I wasn’t sure of something, I asked you about it and filled in the gaps. So to a crude approximation I could resurrect you.”
Tess stood there with her jaw stilled, slightly open. “You’ve been after my soul all along?”
“No!” Zephyr’s tail lashed as he tried to get her to understand. “I did this because that’s how my mind works. But I really like you and want to keep you with me and keep you safe and figure out how to be good instead of evil. And stuff.”
If this is what we can do now, thought Tess in Zephyr’s voice, what will we be able to do if we keep going?
After all she’d seen, Tess feared to find out. So she said, “I’m sorry. I have to leave.”
He put a device into her hand, hesitating over it. “It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.” It was her own computer tablet, though she’d hardly used it lately. “I’ve loaded it with a distilled version of myself.”
She eyed the studded cloth, amazed that it contained the soul of an intelligent being. “I thought you didn’t want to be owned, or leaked to the Net.”
“I want you to keep it. It’ll self-destruct if tampered with or copied, I hope. But you can use it to summon a piece of me and revive me if I’m killed again.”
“What about your backup here?”
“This whole island isn’t safe. There’s no guarantee of anything here.”
“You’re scared?” said Tess.
“For both of us. Stay safe, and come back someday.”
Garrett had no mysterious artifacts to offer her, no mind-bending talk of souls, just best wishes and a powerful hug. Tess wasn’t sure which she preferred. Garrett took her back to Cuba to drop her off by the airport, with Zephyr in the boat saying almost nothing. Tess looked back at Castor for what might be the last time. She saw the structure that he’d killed to protect, the little colony of light and motion that was Garrett’s hope and dream and total effort, and it made her blush.
It was Garrett’s soul in hardware.
3. Garrett
He and Zephyr stood on the dock, watching Tess go.
After a while Zephyr spoke. “’Robo-Casanova’, eh?”
Sawing off the heads was horrible work. Out of respect to the Pilgrims he hadn’t dumped the pirates’ bodies into the tank with Phillip’s, but had kept them in a heavily duct-taped set of bags in the freezer. No one spoke of them. When after three days Phillip’s body was gone, Garrett was eager to be rid of the things and move on with his life. But he had taken lives and things shouldn’t be exactly as they were. So, he quietly obtained Eaton’s help and a saw for frozen flesh. Garrett vomited once; he made himself do this task partly for penance, partly as a warning to others. Kept cold the bodies had little scent and oozed blood slowly, as with frozen fish. As he sawed he wavered between lying to himself that it was indeed fish, and making himself acquainted with the way of death, facing it in all its consequences. The act of dumping these bodies into the recycler wasn’t fundamentally different than dumping Phillip’s, yet the meaning was completely different. How had Leda had managed to make a sacred rite of it?
The result was no bodies, and seven human skulls whose image Garrett put on display for all the world. It was only when he’d posted the photo that he felt peace again, felt that the attack was really over. He had achieved mastery over those who would hurt him and made it plain that he preferred peace but could do war. He asked Eaton, “Did you kill before this?”
Eaton nodded. “On several continents, for good reasons. What did you think of it?”
“It’s not something I want to repeat.”
Garrett didn’t draw attention to every aspect of the killing. When he rifled through the pirates’ boat before claiming it as Castor’s, he found ID. The pirates were mostly Cuban, but one seemed to be an American citizen. With shaking hands Garrett burned the evidence, and had another reason to dispose of the bodies. He was protecting this place.
The Cuban police avoided showing up; here was the punch that didn’t come. Instead Garrett got a visit from Domingo, the official who’d tried to foist workers on him. The Director of Social Welfare. Domingo came on one of the party barges, grimly dressed but smiling, and found Garrett working in Dockside. “So, Mister Fox, I’m pleased to see the unpleasantness is behind you.”
I’d rather have it in front of me, thought Garrett. “We got through it on our own.”
“Collective effort can be impressive. I hope you’ll be able to do as well managing your new workers. They come tomorrow.”
“The farm workers you wanted me to hire?” Garrett sighed. “So, are you going to ignore that recent ‘unpleasantness’?”
Domingo smiled. “Ignore it? No. Some are calling you a murderer, but we’re using discretion in this matter. Too much of a bother to drag you to court.”
“How nice of you.” Garrett could imagine some official deciding to have him hauled away in irons any day now for past “crimes” — which was probably what Domingo wanted him to think about. Garrett’s freedom was now more a matter of whether those in power liked him, than of whether he’d broken any law.
“You can expect thirty-six of them tomorrow.” Domingo pulled out a disk and handed it to Garrett. “To help you manage them, here are our files on each.”
“I told you I need an investment to expand our operations well in advance of new workers joining. But I’d be happy to look at the files and consider these people for hiring, once I have equipment for them to work with.” He felt pleased with himself at that bit of diplomacy.
Domingo waved dismissively. “Oh, you’ll get your money.”
“I’ll place orders as soon as I get it, or a binding commitment.”
Domingo laughed at him and said, “Mister Fox, you’re in no position to dictate terms to us. Quite the opposite.”
Garrett didn’t trust his broken leg to carry him across the ocean walkways. The leg was an inanimate block, but for the phantom sensations. By necessity he’d been thumping around, coping with being half-crippled again, and giving a bite-me smile to anyone who suggested a pegleg.
Zephyr entered the office for a scheduled meeting. “Maybe we can build a replacement leg,” he said.
“Or mail the old one out for repair,” said Martin.
Garrett considered. The machinery was shredded, but he’d tried detaching the thing and examining the MMI panel linking the thing to the nerves and blood of his disgusting stump-leg. The panel was fine. It was weird to think of having the leg — something that had been part of him for most of his life — swapped out. But if the MMI got exposed and damaged it’d require surgery, and he didn’t know where he could safely go for that. “Those are both good ideas. Zephyr, you can’t make one of these legs with the RepRap, right?” Way too complex for the little manufacturing device.