"Right." She nods. "So. If this is the Harvest Lore, we're about two hundred years from next landfall. If we assume exponentiation at, say, five infants per family, there's time for ten generations... right, they're looking to breed up about twenty thousand unauthenticated human vectors. Hanta's got time to implant netlinks in them all. So when we arrive, she can flood the network with this new population of carriers"
"That's not going to happen." I smile, baring my teeth. "Never doubt that. They think they've got us trapped. But the right way to view it is, we can't retreat."
"You think we can take them on directly?" Sanni asks, and for a moment she's entirely Janisisolated, damaged, frightened.
"Watch me," I tell her.
THE rest of the day passes uneventfully. I say goodbye to Janis and go home as usual. At least, that's what it must look like to anyone who's watching me. I've spent the past few hours in an absentminded reverie, rolling around irreconcilable memories and trying to work out where I stand. It's most peculiar. On the one hand, I've got Reeve's horror at finding Mick dead, her apprehensive fear that Janis might be "untrustworthy" and a hazard to the friendly and open Dr. Hanta. And on the other hand, I've got Robin's experiences. Sneaking around City Hall on tiptoe, finding locked areas and avoiding Fiore by the skin of my teeth. Coming across Mick in the hospital, with Cass. Dropping in on Janis in the library, her initial guilty fear and the slowly growing convictionon my partthat she wasn't just a bystander but an ally. Recognition protocols and the shock of mutual recognition.
Janis has been on her own in here for almost half a year longer than I have. When she realized she wasn't alone, she broke down and cried. She'd been certain it was only a matter of time before Dr. Hanta got around to her. Terror, isolation, fear of the midnight knock on the door: They wear you down after a while. She got pregnant before anyone had figured out that part of the scheme. I'm surprised she's still functioning at all.
The score system and the experimental protocols are a real obstacle to us: For all we know, half the population of YFH-polity could be cell members of one faction or another, blundering around in the dark, unwilling to risk revealing themselves. But unless we can somehow kick over the superstructure of artifice that the cabal have established, we won't be able to link up with our potential allies and identify our real enemies. Divide and conquer: You know it makes sense.
I get home in due course, by way of the hardware store. Sam is absent, so I go straight into the garage to see what I can do. This isn't the time for recrimination, but I'm really pissed at myself. I was going to get rid of this stuff! If nothing else, I found making historic weapons fascinating. I may end up doing it as a hobby, when all this is over, if there's scope for such luxuries.
Still, I guess I won't be needing the crossbow now. Or the sword I was trying to temper. Sanni and I have got a sterile assembler with full military scope. We left it cooking last night, slowly and laboriously building a stockpile of polynitrohexose bricks. Making weapons by A-gate is a slow process, and the higher the energy density the longer it takes, so we compromised and opted for chempowered weapons. The first batch of machine pistols will be ready when we go in to work tomorrow. Which leads to the next logical questionwhere's my Faraday cage bag gotten to in this pile?
I'm hopping around on top of a pile of scattered steel bar stock and spilled screwdrivers, cursing up a blue streak and clutching my left foot when some change in the light alerts me to the fact that the garage door is open. "What the fuck"
"Reeve?"
"Fuck!" I howl. "Shit. Dropped my hammer and"
"Reeve? What's going on?"
I force myself to calm down. "I dropped my hammer and it landed on this pile of bar stock and it bounced on my toe." I hop some more. The pain is beginning to subside. "The hammer is evil and must be punished."
"The hammer?" He pauses. "Have you been drinking?"
"Not yet." I lean against the wall and experimentally put my foot on the floor. "Ouch. I just decided to turn over a newhehleaf again. A girl needs a hobby and all that." I raise an eyebrow.
He looks at me skeptically. "Bad day at the office?"
"It's always a bad day at the office, insofar as the office exists in the first place."
He frowns. "What's this about a hobby?"
"Extreme metalworking, or something like that. Have you seen my copy of The Swordsmith's Assistant ? I was going to throw it out when I wasn't feeling myself, but I never got round to it."
You can almost see the light come on above his head. "Reeve? Is that you?"
"I had a crap day at the office, too. Reading poetry out of boredom, you know? Last night I met upon the stair, a big fat man who wasn't there; he wasn't there again today: inside my head he'll have to stay.' Ogden Nashville. Apparently, the ancients seem to have liked him for some reason. C'mon, let's go and round up some supper."
Sam retreats back into the house ahead of me, lips moving soundlessly as he turns it over in his head. I have been reading poetry at work, I just hope my improvised doggerel gets through. (Poetry really gums up conversational monitoring systems. Parsing metaphor and emotional states is an AI-complete problem.)
We end up in the kitchen. "Were you thinking about cooking again?" Sam asks cautiously. Thinking back to days past, I suspect he wasn't too enthusiastic about being subjected to some of my experiments.
"Let's just order a pizza instead, hmm? And a flask of wine."
"Why?" He stares at me.
"Do you have to turn every suggestion for what to do of an evening into an impromptu therapy session?"
He shrugs. "Just asking." He begins to turn away.
I grab his shoulder. "Don't do that."
He turns back sharply, looking surprised. "What?"
"Last night I met upon the stair, a big fat man who wasn't there; he wasn't there again today: inside my head he'll have to stay' ... I haven't been myself lately, Sam, but I'm feeling a lot better today." I frown at him, willing the words to sink in.
"Oh, you mean..."
"Shh!" I hold up a warning finger. "The walls have ears."
Sam's eyes widen, and he begins to pull away from me. I grab at his shoulder, hard, then step in close and wrap my arms around him. He tries to push back, but I lean my face against his shoulder. "We need to talk," I whisper.
"About what?" he whispers back. But at least he stops pushing.
"What's going on." I lick his earlobe, and he jolts as if I've stuck a live wire in it.
"Don't do that!" he hisses.
"Why not?" I ask, amused. "Afraid you might enjoy it?"
"But we, they"
"I'm going to order food. While we're eating, let's keep things light, okay? Afterward we'll go upstairs. I've got a trick or two to show you. For avoiding eavesdroppers ." I add in a whisper: "Smile, please."
"Won't it be obvious?" He's lowered his arms and is holding me loosely around the waist. I shiver because I've been wanting him to do that so badly for the past weekno, let's not go there.