“Tao, yes. You, not so much.” Vladimir shrugged. “Don’t take it the wrong way. Most vessels are not recognized; only their Holy Ones matter. However, the Genjix did name a project after you.”
This was a first. Roen would have thought information of this kind would have reached his desk by now. After all, how many people could claim having secret programs named after them?
“So,” he asked, “how did the project go? I’m assuming it’s not anything cool like saving polar bears or bringing clean water to people in the desert.”
Vladimir scooped another pancake into his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. “It was called the Tan Transfer Initiative. Body transfer research. The Council wanted to see if what happened to you could be replicated.”
Roen grinned “Ooh, I even get a fancy name. How did the me transfer go?”
“Three hundred human deaths in the process. Then they decided to move the experiment to primates. All complete failures before the program was scrapped.”
“Three hundred!” Roen had trouble processing that staggering number. In a way, he kind of felt bad. He couldn’t help but think he was to blame for those deaths. After all, the project was named after him. “Leave it to your stupid Holy Ones to experiment on humans first, and then go to primates. I guess the bright side is three hundred Genjix agents died.”
Vladimir grunted. “Anyway, you have questions, Prophus. Ask.”
All right,” Roen began. “Let’s pretend we’re both smart guys and we won’t lie to each other. By now, you’ve probably surmised that I didn’t find you in the forest by accident.”
“You knew we were traveling through North America? How? The Prophus surveillance network is in tatters. A traitor then?” Vladimir furrowed his brow. “Couldn’t be the Epsilons. I would wager my daughter’s life on their loyalty. Couldn’t have been the two Pakistanis we lost before crossing into Alaska. We deviated from the original plan by heading south…” His voice trailed off. “The professor.”
Roen nodded. “Professor Sachin was a good man, and Mawl was not a traitor. He had worked as a Prophus agent since the beginning.”
“Ladm always said Mawl never seemed to have his heart in the war,” Vladimir said. “So you have me now. What do you want? You must know by now that I am powerless. My Council faction has lost most of its influence.”
Roen chuckled. “We really don’t care about you, Vladimir. You’re just an added bonus.”
Realization dawned on the Russian’s face. “Rin. She’s the one you are after all along. You want to capture one of the architects of the Quasiform program.”
“Capture? She defected.”
“I see. And the rest of us: Tabs, Ladm, and Brep, along with the vessels. Are we now expendable?”
Roen stopped smiling and leaned forward. “That remains for you to decide. You see, you have a lot of information we could use. Baji still remembers Ladm fondly from the Decennials and believes accommodations can be worked out. Admit it, as part of Vinnick’s faction, you’re not really down with Quasiform, are you? What kind of life do you think your little girl will live if it happens?”
“I am also not that disagreeable to it either. We are just instruments of the Holy Ones. If I say no?”
Roen pulled out a pen and notepad and slid it forward. “You won’t, Vladimir, because you’re out of friends. Enzo already killed your wife and won’t hesitate to gun you and Alex down. You’re in a hostile country where the government will go to great lengths to incarcerate you, and frankly, no one else in the world will help you. We won’t threaten you any more, because blackmailed allies make poor allies.
“Think it over. If you wish to leave on your own, we’ll cut you loose. If you wish Prophus protection, I expect everything you know about Genjix operations under your financier network written down by this evening. Then we’ll lead you and your little girl through our Underground Railroad to one of our safe zones in Greenland or South America. So what will it be? Prophus help or risk your daughter’s life and be hunted by both sides and every government in the world?”
Vladimir reached for the pen and tapped the notebook with it several times. “Those are my options? Hardly a choice.”
“It never is,” Roen grinned as he stood up and went to go retrieve Jill next door. “No one ever picks Greenland.”
4 School Day
So you wish to learn something besides ancient history? Well, we have already gone over my entire time here on Earth. How about we try something different? I have never told this to any of my hosts before. It is sort of an unspoken rule among the Quasing to not divulge our history before we came to this planet.
However, it is a mostly harmless truth, and I would like to wade through the memories of my home world again.
Tao
Cameron Tan stared at the history exam question on his computer screen: Was the Alamo the greatest tactical defeat in the history of the United States? If not, then name another.
This one took him a few seconds to mull over. “I’m going to have to say yes. That could also be the dumbest celebrated event of all time.”
Except that Texas did not become a state until a decade later.
“Sneaky Ms Federlin. What do you think then, Tao? Pearl Harbor?”
That or Chosin Reservoir.
“What about just overall dumbest?”
This is a difficult one to choose. I do rank the Alamo right up there with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia for pure asinine decision-making, alongside maybe the Maginot Line. The level of dumb you humans can achieve is quite mind-boggling. However, I will have to go with your mother telling the world about the Quasing’s existence.
“Someone reminds her every month.”
And Jill still says she would do it again.
Mom had heard it thousands of times by now and had tried to always let it slide, but Cameron knew that it haunted her. She was just better at hiding it these days. Still, it pissed him off when people brought it up. Hundreds of refugees and agents passed through her region constantly, and someone inevitably mentioned it.
When he was a kid, he used to get mad for her and yell at them. She would scold him for raising his voice. Now, he just ground his teeth and kept his mouth shut, though then Tao would scold him for grinding his teeth. There was just no winning between all his parents.
He had arrived to school forty minutes late, drenched with sweat as he hurried to first period. The class was taking an exam on the United States wars up to the fall of the Soviet Union. Ms Federlin had looked at him with disapproval when he rushed to his seat with ten minutes left in class. She had told him that he could either wait outside or take the hour-long exam in the last nine minutes of class. It was an easy decision; Cameron couldn’t stay after school, so he just tore through the test.
He had to admit he did lean on Tao a bit more than usual. Still, a minute before the class bell rang, he had finished the last question and hit the submit button. History was easily his strongest subject. Sure, having an older-than-dirt alien who had had front-row seats to the past helped just a tiny bit, but Cameron didn’t think he leaned on his mentor as much as his parents thought he did.
Keep being delusional, pal.
As the students were leaving class, Ms Federlin beckoned him over. Cameron held in his sigh and he walked over to her desk. She held up his note. “I know for a fact, Cameron Tan, that you used the same note last month.” She opened the drawer and pulled out an exact copy of the one he had just handed her. “That many coyotes?”
Oh Roen.
“Damn Dad. How did you ever survive in his body, Tao?”