Jim had broadcast the conversation so that Rafael could follow. The older man said, “I don’t want this thing on me at all. I was better off in prison without it. Do whatever you have to do. I want to see my daughter and my grandson.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Let’s do it. I have a feeling that Eva’s expecting me.”
“Dad, I’m going to send you a file,” Dana said. “Once you get it, activate the file then transmit it to the security collar. Let’s hope that works.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Jim said.
“Why?”
“Never mind. Just send me the file.” Jim’s sleeve emitted a quiet chime. He had Dana’s transmission. He subvocalized and then pointed his sleeve at the collar. Another chime announced that the file was accepted.
“Well, Rafael seems to be all right,” Jim reported. “Sir,” he said to his father-in-law, “I’m going to find Eva. Please stay here unless it’s an emergency. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the collar.”
He looked Rafael over one more time and then said to Dana, “This is it. I’m going to find her. When I, uh, resolve things, I’ll link back. Now I’m going to link to your mom and then I have to go to work. See you soon.”
Jim linked to his wife. “Querida, I’m going after Eva.”
“Be careful.” Her voice caught. “Te quiero.” I love you.
Jim broke the connection.
He left Rafael in the small bedroom and reengaged his skinsuit. Approaching the stairway, he took a deep breath and climbed, flush with determination and dread. Sixteen steps to the fourth floor. He heard Eva pacing. He inched his way towards the sound.
This floor was different. The construction was new. The walls were paneled with a lighter wood, a reddish hue that gave a more expansive feel. Still, Jim felt hemmed in, despite the light and airy character of the timber.
The hallway led to a large, open work area. Sunlight streamed in through full-length windows. Unlike the windows in the rest of the house, these were modern nanoglass. The floors were ebony and teak. The woods were fashioned into a black and dark brown sunburst, centered in the middle of the room.
Jim heard her before he saw her. Her breathing was uneven and there was an odd crinkling sound as she moved, something like cellophane. It reminded him of wrapping paper on Christmas presents in his childhood. He remembered the barren feeling of the holidays, wondering what might anger his father.
He had not thought much about his parents for years. He’d sent a databurst link to them after he and Marta married. His father replied with an old-fashioned card, something that appeared to have been purchased from the stationary aisle at a grocery store. The card was white, with a silver pair of wedding bells embossed on the cover. The stilted poem inside the card appeared to have been composed by a journeyman writer. The prefabricated message started with the words, “We wish you years of happiness on your wedding day…” Jim wondered how he could enjoy years of happiness on a single day. The card was signed, “Your father and mother.” Not, “Dad and Mom” or, “With love…” or even, “Best wishes…”
His father’s scrawled signature was tiny, the writing faint. Jim could see places where he’d stopped and started. Marta said that the unsteady hand and uneven pressure suggested his health was failing.
“He couldn’t have written, ‘With love’? Or something personal?”
“Shhh… Querido. Let it be. His signature looks like that of someone with some neurological degeneration and loss of muscle control. Maybe Parkinson’s. At least he sent you a card.”
“Yeah, but he’s still playing cock of the walk. He didn’t even let Mom sign it.” And then he never heard from them again, not once, until his mother was dying.
She died six years earlier. Six? Seven? I don’t remember. An attendant at the hospital where she spent her last days had linked to him, to let him know he should come immediately. Her kidneys were failing and she’d refused dialysis. “She just wants to go,” the attendant explained.
Jim flew to Pasadena in an NMech jet to make his peace with her. She was wan and drawn. She greeted him warmly at first, but within minutes, mother and son were arguing. It was as if no time had elapsed in the past quarter century. I guess deathbed scenes work better in vids than in real life, he thought.
The crinkling sound was louder and it pulled Jim’s thoughts back to the present. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Across the open studio Eva stood, feet close together. She seemed to sway. Her eyes were opened wider than normal and had a feral look. There was a rigid tension in her posture. He touched his datasleeve and allowed himself to be visible.
She spoke. “You come to me. You have to. You’re more like me than Marta.”
“No, Eva. This has nothing to do with Marta, or with you and me.”
“You owe me. I helped you. I helped her. Stay here.”
It was like hearing the petulant demands of a toddler. He tried to reason with her as he might with a child. “Eva, you’re a great woman. You are good to your friends. I admire you. But what you did is hurting people, killing them. Tens of thousands of people, maybe more.”
“Disregard that.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, as if Jim had announced the weather.
“Eva, do you know what is going on around the world? The good things you created are falling apart. We can work together to rebuild it all. Eva, I am your friend and will always be your friend. Let’s fix your good works before more people die.”
He started to edge towards her.
“Don’t come near me. I’ll hurt you.”
“I thought you wanted me to stay.”
“Maybe you’re not really my friend.”
“Eva, please. Let me help you.” Jim kept moving, an inch or two at a time. He averted his gaze, tucked his head down and hunched his shoulders slightly. Subtle transformations in body posture made him look smaller, non-threatening.
Eva took a step. There was that crinkling sound again. He looked carefully at his lifelong friend, now changed into…what? Her garments were covered with a network of black cables, each no wider than a blade of grass. They ran down her arms and legs and around her torso. Jim looked puzzled, then surprised. She was wearing an exoskeleton, electro-active polymer fibers that magnified her strength and allowed her to lift several-hundred-pound objects or strike with superhuman force. She began to walk forward. Jim held his arms out, palms up, as if to say, “I’m no threat.”
Eva advanced. A look of rage had replaced her usual expressionless demeanor. There was no mistaking her intent.
Marta and Dana searched Eva’s office again. There were few papers. Dana helped his mother to jack the datapillar. It was another dead end.
“Do you suppose that she wiped the pillar of any traces?” Marta asked her son.
“There would be something there to find, I think. I’d bet she used a different pillar to wash out the public health programs. Maybe from a pillar at her home.”
“Let’s go help your father,” Marta said.
“No,” said Dana, “We’ll be in his way. He’s better off solo. And her pillar is probably protected. I want to look for something here that will help disable the pillar. So, let’s wait till he links to us.”
Jim stood fast and spoke soothingly. “Eva, you have so much power. You can help. People are rioting in the Caribbean because there’s no more water. Diabetics are going into shock. Kidney patients are dying. They’re innocent. You have the power to save them. Then you and I can sort things out.”
“You can’t stop me,” Eva said in a jittery voice and continued to move towards him. She picked up a chair. Jim started to react even before her hand touched the chair’s straight back. He almost wasn’t fast enough. She threw it at him with no more effort than swatting a fly. The chair hit the wall behind him and shattered.