[XIV]
NATALIE NAPPED A lot. Maybe she was depressed, or maybe it was dope in her food, though Dis didn’t find any record of that anymore in the patient management stuff in control-central.
Maybe it was her mind’s defense mechanism, shutting down in the face of boredom and frustration. Her friends said they’d come get her. Gretyl promised, but days had passed since she’d heard from them. Her father stopped visiting. She didn’t know if that was because she’d gotten under his skin, or because he’d blown town for some business, which was the sort of thing he’d always done. Mom and Cordelia visited for regular, sterile half-hours. Every time they left, she swore next time, she’d freeze them, sit in stony silence.
But then they arrived and opened with rehearsed pleasantry – “Oh, Natty, it’s been such a day—” and smile, and she was a Redwater girl among Redwater girls, the sisterhood of ladies who lunch and who would never be allowed to be more than that. Her mother missed Greece, and often passed the whole half-hour in a monologue about a particular boat captain, or wonderful honey, or a shrine a Greek family brought her to, approached by knee-walking pilgrims who wore painter’s knee-pads to protect themselves as they humped up the hill to the icon of Madonna in the humble building.
Cordelia talked about school, professors, and a boy – a man, she said – whom Jacob would never approve of. It was easy to hold up her end of these conversations. All she had to do was nod and make noises and not stand and scream it was bullshit, everything Cordelia dedicated her life to was worse than a sham, fueled by delusional conviction that the money, power, and privilege of the Redwaters was something they’d earned – and therefore, everyone without lovely money and power and privilege hadn’t earned it.
Sometimes, the merc came in. Natalie had listened carefully for someone to mention her name. She desperately wanted to know. The merc was a bridge between worlds. She had to live in the real world where privilege was obviously undeserved. How could she meet clients and not know? She had to be able to make it not matter, because her paycheck depended on her not letting herself care, on understanding walkaway well enough to snatch them. The merc wasn’t her friend, but she was important.
No one called her by name. When Jacob wanted her, he changed the pitch of his voice, switching to a command tone he always used on bodyguards. It was different from the command tone he used on domestic servants, more militarized, like he was LARPing a blue-jawed sergeant in a war-movie. When Mom wanted the merc, she switched to her wheedling tone, the “do me a favor” voice, less gracious for the iron-clad conviction the favor would be done.
Cordelia never spoke to the merc. She treated her as if she were invisible, a walking C.C.T.V. If she ever looked at the merc, it was with fear.
The merc was key.
The next time the merc came in – bringing in a basket with snack-food, fresh underwear and shirts, and a pointless shatterproof vase of unseasonal hothouse flowers that had undoubtedly originated with her mother – Natalie locked eyes with her.
“We could do a side-deal. No one would have to know, not at first. They can’t keep me here forever. Eventually they’ll get bored of the crazy sister in the attic and ship me to a nut-hatch and kick you out on your butt. If I can get out, I can get a contingency lawyer to harass them into unlocking my trust fund. You know how I feel about money, you’ve seen how I want to live. I’d sign it over to you. Air-tight and irrevocable. It’s more than they’re going to pay you, more than they could ever pay you. A fortune. A dynastic fortune, the kind that will still be intact when you’re an old lady and your kids are fighting over your deathbed for the dough.
“I’m sure you’re thinking if you did this you’d be radioactively fucked. That’s why I’m offering you the whole package: life without having to work another day, ever. Automatic deposits, every month, for you, your kids, their kids. The way the trust is written, there’s a good chance that when Mummy and Daddy kick the bucket, there’ll be fresh dough in the trust, even more for you and yours. All they can offer you is a bed under the stairs – I’m offering to turn you into a zotta.”
The merc looked at her.
Natalie smiled. “You know I mean it.” She hesitated, because this part was dangerous, if she’d misjudged the woman. “There’s no video of this conversation. Check for yourself, then let’s deal.”
A maybe-smile crossed the merc’s face, so subtle Natalie might have been kidding herself. She set the basket down and backed out, like she always did, with that confident stride that said, I’m not afraid of you, this is just best-practices.
As soon as the door clunk-clunked, Dis said, “That was...”
“I know. I’m sick of being a fucking damsel. Princess Peach sucks. I wanna be Mario. It’s been weeks. This isn’t going to get better. Dad isn’t going to wake up and say, ‘What the fuck was I thinking? Nice people don’t kidnap their daughters!’ If I can’t fake capitulation, he’s going to bury me in some deep hole, a boot camp for rich bitches where they shave your head and make you crawl in mud until you mewl for mercy and then they send you home with a zombinol pump in your appendix and your smile stapled on with sutures.”
“But if she rats you out, they’ll catch me.”
“So what? If you’ve pwned them as thoroughly as you say, they’ll have a hell of a time rooting you out – in the meantime, they’ll have to move me, which might be a chance to get away. You’re backed up. Getting caught isn’t the death penalty – just email your diff file to another instance. You can walkaway. That’s the whole point of the Dis Experience.”
Dis was silent. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“You think I can’t handle it.”
“I don’t think anyone could handle it, or should have to handle it alone.”
Natalie remembered how glad she’d been when Dis first spoke, the relief of having an ally. Even not knowing whether Dis was compromised, whether Dis herself could tell if she had been compromised, it had been such a relief. Before Dis, she’d been so isolated that she’d cracked up.
“Having you here kept me from doing more to help myself. You’re my Deus Ex, promising salvation from afar. I was going insane before you got here, because I was in an insane situation. I’ve been sane since – even though my situation’s more fucked up. That’s not a good thing.”
Another machine silence. Natalie remembered when Dis was a fragile, cracked-up simulation, how she’d gentled her while she worked on the problem of her own sanity. There was a symmetry in Dis returning the favor.
“I’m not a sim, Dis. I’m a human being. I’m cracking up because my situation is terminally fubared.”
Could a sim cry? There was a thickness to Dis’s voice: “I understand.”
“Are you okay? You shouldn’t be able to feel sad, right?” She was alarmed, thinking of how spectacularly off the rails Dis could go, remembering the terrifying personality disintegrations at the end.
“I think so. I – There’s a bunch of us, a bunch of Dises, who’ve been trying to loosen the strings on our personalities. Gretyl’s work on lookaheads lets us do it. When we started, we were sparing with lookahead, steering clear of the banks, trying to go down the middle. We’re so much better at lookaheads – the code’s getting tighter – we’re working with wider ranges, closer to the edges.”