“No one owns me,” Jude said quietly.
“Sounds pretty. That doesn’t make it true.”
“As usual, your vision is severely lacking.”
“If you mean I lack the vision to see how selling corp secrets to Aikida is going to change anything, then I guess that’s another thing we agree on.”
“We’re not selling them for money,” Jude said.
“So what, then?”
“The only way we get free of BioMax is if we control the means to create new bodies and to download ourselves into them. And to make sure we store the uploaded memories on a server that no one but us has access to. Aikida is going to help us do that. We get them the specs they need; they supply us with our very own laboratory and production facilities, and a skeleton staff of scientists and engineers that can train us to do everything for ourselves. We sign a noncompete with them, to guarantee that we function only in this country, so we don’t interfere with Aikida operations—but beyond that we’re free.”
“And all of this is going to take place…” It was beginning to sink in. Why we were here. Why Jude was so proud of his ghost town.
“Right here,” Jude said. “Ground zero of our independence day. A country of our own, inside the one that doesn’t want us—let them stay on their side of the border, and we’ll stay on ours.”
I didn’t bother to ask about the benevolent dictator who would inevitably be leading this imaginary country of his. Instead: “You’re insane.”
“You see it, don’t you?” Jude appealed to Riley. “We’ve got everything we need here. Space, privacy, an almost completely intact infrastructure. It could be what we’ve always wanted. A place to be left alone.”
Riley’s gaze swept the jagged skyline. He didn’t answer.
“Riley, I was thinking you could take a look at the generators?” Jude said. He’d led us to some kind of power plant. Scorch marks scraped its sides, and one wall had collapsed. “See if I’m wrong about their condition? You know this stuff so much better than I do.”
“Not so much better,” Riley said, obviously pleased by the compliment.
“So much,” Jude insisted. “Take a look?”
“He’s not going in there,” I said, surprised the building was still standing. “It looks like the roof might cave in.”
Riley squeezed my hand. “I’ll be back in a minute.” And then, like we’d traveled back in time six months and nothing had changed between them, he did exactly as Jude said, and stepped inside.
Which left me and Jude alone.
“So you’re lying to him,” Jude said. “Again.”
“None of your business.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“This is better for him,” I said. “If you care about that at all anymore, you’ll trust me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Should I even bother saying please?”
“So you’re asking me for a favor,” Jude concluded. “I knew you finally grew a spine, but the balls must be new.”
“I’m asking for him,” I said. “He shouldn’t have to know what you forced him to do.”
“Oh, I forced him to shoot me? And set the secops on me?”
“Please,” I said again, hating that I had to beg. “You’re here, you’re fine, so—”
“Stop,” he said. “What did you think? That I dragged you here to mess with your pathetic little arrangement? Maybe you think I’m going to blackmail you into helping me with BioMax? I keep my mouth shut to Riley, and you do whatever I say?”
“I’m waiting.”
“You really think I’d do that?” he asked. He sounded hurt; he’d always been a good actor. “If you knew anything—” He stopped abruptly and changed course. “I really have been watching you on the network. I see what you’re trying to do. You might even have helped a bit, here and there. But you’ve got to think about the big picture. This is a waste of your time—and your rather ample talents. I’m not going to blackmail you into helping me. I don’t have to. Because once you think about it, you’ll see that I’m right. Anything else is just postponing the inevitable.”
“That’s your pitch? I’m going to help you because it’s the right thing to do?”
“This is my pitch: Korinne Lat. Mara Wells. Portia Bavanti. Tyler—”
“What’s your point?” But I knew. I knew those names as well as he did.
“Mechs who’ve been attacked,” he said. “Mechs who’ve been ambushed or lynched or kidnapped by orgs. And those are just the ones we know about, because why bother to report a crime that’s not a crime?” As I’d learned my first month at BioMax, org-on-mech violence increased by 230 percent when mech attacks were officially declared consequence-free. Kicking and punching and strangling a machine were deemed to be property damage, and the mechs had no owners who could sue. (As several corp-controlled courts had ruled; a machine could not own itself.)
“Jude, I know all about—”
“And I could keep going,” he said, loudly. “You want more names? How about the names of the mechs who’ve lost everything because the corps have confiscated their credit and shut down their zones? Because mechs are no longer officially living people under the law; we’re things. With no standing. No rights.”
“Like I don’t know that.”
“You know, but you still have somewhere to live. You have a father to buy you things. You don’t know what it’s like to—”
“You think I don’t know?” I shouted. “I know exactly how many mechs are getting hurt every damn day. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m working with BioMax. I’m trying to fix things. I’m trying to change them. So what are you doing? Hiding out like some kind of end-of-the-world nutcase, waiting for us to get so desperate that we throw ourselves on your mercy? Great plan, Jude. How could I ever have doubted you?”
He didn’t look at all surprised, or even disappointed. “Eventually you’ll see you’re fighting a losing battle.”
“Enjoy the wait.”
“Frankly, I don’t have time for it. So I’ve got something to speed along your comprehension. Or at least your willingness.”
“Finally.” Because clearly, everything else had been preamble, priming the pump. This, whatever it was, would be why we were really here. “Tell me why I’m going to help you.”
“Because it will hurt your father.”
“Maybe you should pay closer attention,” I said. “My father and I are fine. I have no interest in hurting him.”
Jude’s hand shot out and grabbed mine before I could pull away. He pressed something sharp into my palm. I assumed it was a dreamer, the tiny cubes that offered mechs a hallucinatory escape from the world. Jude had offered me my very first one in exactly this way. But the object was the wrong size and lacked the dreamer’s distinctive etchings along the edge.
Jude was still gripping my hand. “You may not want to hurt him yet,” he said. “But trust me, you will.”
4. SACRIFICE
It was a flash drive. Nearly archaic, used only for the kind of data you couldn’t trust to transmission over the network and so reserved for hand-to-hand exchange. The drive had Chinese ideograms scratched across its length, which I assumed meant that Jude had picked it up during his stint at Aikida. Or at least that he wanted me to think so. I slid it into my pocket before Riley could see, and resolved not to think about it again until I was alone.