1989
Sparks flew from welding torches and grinding cylinders. Metal-on-metal keened deafening across the workshop floor. Touma Javier Hikari delighted in the sounds forcing their way through his earplugs, the mingled smells of coolant and sweat. The semi-spherical chassis he'd just taken off the grinder slid neatly into place atop the assemblage of circuitry and motors.
A finger tapped on his shoulder as he admired his handiwork; it was attached to the tall, slender form of Albert Wojciech Weil. He mouthed 'Let's talk,' and made for the nearest door out. Touma lifted up his welding mask and smiled apology at the device on his workbench.
"I'll be right back, little guy."
Smoke, chatter, and people lunching in the courtyard. Albert was leaning against the far wall, its bleach white composite glaring, rising to whorls of barbed wire scratching the cloudless blue sky above.
"Why do we always have to talk here?"
"It's a good reminder of the sorts of people we work for. Helps us keep perspective," Albert said. "Don't look at me like that."
Touma continued looking at him like that until Albert fidgeted: victory.
"Something on your mind? You look worse than usual."
"I don't need that from a man who smells like he hasn't left the shop floor in two days."
"I haven't left the shop floor in two—"
"At any rate, I've had a look at our new arrival."
"New arrival? Oh, you mean Doctor Sidaikhmanra. Where do they have him?"
"Officially he's in the communications systems section, but I've seen the black-suit-and-sunglasses-indoors types hauling him off for hours every day. Presumably verifying all the leaks."
"It was brave to do what he did."
"It was. And now the bosses are making him look toxic with this theatre," Albert said. "Nobody wants to talk to him. The rumors about what happened with the Soviet project are making it worse."
Touma thumbed through a mental index of what he'd heard. The general in charge led a coup with alien technology; the robot came back to life and went berserk; the scientists went mad and killed each other.
"They can't be helping. And?"
"I want you to talk to him," Albert said. "It can't be me. Even if it's been years since I went over the Wall, he'll just—"
"I get it," Touma said, patting him on the shoulder. "Hard to open up if he's reminded of that stuff straightaway, right? You're a lot more empathetic than people think."
"Thanks. Wait, people think I'm not empa—"
"Don't worry about it. I'll try to carve out some time to talk to him today; don't worry, I'll be delicate. That's why they call me Doctor Light, 'cause I've got the light touch."
"Isn't it because your surname's Hikari?" Albert's shocks of prematurely-grey brow drew up in such genuine surprise that Touma nearly felt guilty. "Nobody calls you Doctor Light."
"They don't, but maybe they should," Touma said, chuckling. Albert sighed and brushed his hand away.
"Oi. This is why I hate you." A smile, nearly invisible. "Thank you."
Touma slumped into Albert's spot for a moment and tried to put himself in the mind of Doctor Sidaikhmanra. There had been the fear of punishment or death; the grind of poverty and waste—hardly promising, what could Touma say to him about either of those things? Unreasonable bosses? Better; certainly that was common ground, if hardly the kind of insight that frees a man's soul.
A courtyard is no place to think. Go back to the spark and grind and hiss and heat; the right words are hidden somewhere in the metal, waiting to be worked into shape. By the time his shift ended, the little helmeted drone—that had been dubbed a 'Metool' for logical reasons that nobody could give him—was fully assembled. So was his plan. He checked in with his team, said his goodbyes, and jogged up the stairs to the second floor where all the code-and-signal jockeys hid.
It was a different country to him, one of sterile white surfaces, sterile white labcoats, sterile white text on black screens, and all so quiet. He was suddenly very aware of his hygiene and found himself making excuses to every knot of people he passed. Just as he told himself to clear his mind, he walked straight into a haggard, aged man and sent both of them sprawling to the floor.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention," he said, scrambling back to his feet, stretching out his hand. "Here, let me . . ."
"No, no, it is my fault." The man's accent was thick, Slavic of some sort. Touma was looking into the face of Sergei Sidaikhmanra.
"Hey, just the man I was looking for!"
"Eh?"
"I'm a big admirer of your work. Your paper on the importance of signals processing to machine learning floored me," Touma said, grinning from ear to ear. Maybe a bit too thick, he thought, but at least it's true.
Sergei studied him, slow-blinking, shadows clinging to every too-soon wrinkle. It strained belief that he was a year younger than Touma.
"You are Doctor Hikari, no? I'm honored by your kind words, but there is no need to . . ."
His voice withering, his shoulders sank under his burdens.
"Well, if you'd forgive the selfishness, I was hoping I could get your help with something."
"My help?"
Touma ushered him towards a corner of the room.
"See, Weil and I have this project we're putting together on our time. A humanoid robot design. Now he's got the programming in hand and I've got the mechanics sorted, but the actual hardware of the nervous system has been giving us fits. I know it's asking a lot, but if you could take a look at it some time?"
Sergei didn't breathe, didn't move for long enough that Touma began to worry he may have killed the man somehow. Only Sergei's hand rising to stroke his beard said otherwise.
"You've written things down?"
"Some, yes."
"I don't know how useful I can be, but my evenings are free. Perhaps over dinner?"
"That's perfect. I think your expertise just might be the missing piece."
2163
The night sky was so full of dancing lights that the boy could not see a single star. They turned like ribbons in the wind, they turned red to violet to blue to colors he hadn't words for. He heard the paper door slide open behind him, but could not look away.
"Grandpa, did God really make them?" he whispered, pointing up. The old man sat cross-legged next to his grandson and tousled his hair.
"Who told you that?"
"That's what the priest told us."
"Is that so?"
"Uh-huh. He said God got rid of the robots and the people who made them, and made the lights to warn us so we don't do it again."
The boy rounded his shoulders, pulled his knees into his chest, shrinking as though he might offend the night.
"Well, I don't know about that, but I can tell you what my grandfather told me when I was your age, if you like."
The boy may as well have been drowning and just thrown a lifeline the way his breath caught. The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose and made a mental note to scold his son for subjecting the boy to Remnant nonsense.
"Well, when he was a very young boy, robots were everywhere. He said they were machines to help humans do certain things that were too difficult or too dangerous for them to do themselves."
"That sounds like the tools dad uses."
"Exactly. Your father can't carve those beautiful cabinets without his tools, can he? Robots were just like that, but for bigger things. The problem is that they didn't have their own minds, so they had to do whatever they were told."
The boy sat with that thought for a moment.
"What if someone told them to do something . . . wrong?"
"So you see the problem," the old man said.
"Is that what Doctor Wily did?"
"Yes, but he wasn't the only one. The way my grandfather told it, the robots brought out the worst in people. I look around at the sorts of people still with us today and . . ." He paused to consider the fragile shine in the boy's eyes and forced a chuckle. "Ah, I'm just grumpy because I'm old."
The old man was relieved to feel the boy slacken and rest an eased head on grandpa's chest.
"They're scary, but they're kind of pretty," the boy said, holding a hand up towards the lights.
Eusebio Cain the man was not on the stage; Eusebio Cain the tiger paced it roaring, clawing, stirring the crowd's hunger with his own.
"Now that they are here, they will not stop until they rule you." Stabs of his finger kept rhythm with his speech, kept drawing eyes to the small dark knot far in the back of the crowd. "Look past those robes and their promise of salvation, recognize them for what they are: tyrants! Theocrats! Does Eindhoven have need of them?"
A thousand voices offered him their indignation, but it wasn't enough. All it took was eight men armed and armored to keep the 'bishop' safe, smirking. So be it. Cain leaped from the stage and felt at once the pulse and heat of the people. They propelled him; their enemy drew him, he moved without his will, an instrument of something more. The crowd grew quieter as they parted for him.
One great breath was held as he came face-to-face with the bishop and his guards.
"You came here to show your power, to try to scare the people. So, go on then." He spread his arms wide, grinned wider still. "I'm as much a heretic as anyone living, so prove to everyone right now why they should fear you. Punish me for my sins."
The bishop's smirk bent, twisted in on itself. He considered the disposition of his guards, saw the crowd drawing noose-tight.
"Your time will come."
As the bishop and his men retreated, Cain heard his name sent up to the heavens. His time had already come, the time of all free people.
The roar and jostle and smiles and tears of the rally gave way to the dim nothing of an idling television screen and a fifty-four-year-old face staring back at Cain. He didn't breathe or blink, a state of suspended animation to protect him from his quiet apartment in Patras, from nobody caring about his glorious past, from the letter in his hand.
Letter? Death warrant? Query: has a letter beginning with the words "It pains me to—" ever failed to prove twice as painful for the recipient?
The young, energetic, high-minded, and utterly spineless new President of Patras University insisted that terminating Cain's employment as a professor was out of his hands. It was incumbent upon Cain to understand that his subversive activities—which had been well known from the time the previous President had campaigned for his asylum and employed him—had simply run afoul of 'a shift in the zeitgeist.' That struck Cain as a peculiar euphemism for 'people who hate you won the last consular elections.'
He crumpled up the letter and threw it to the floor, reaching for the half-full bottle of gin on the nearby stand. He was disappointed, three minutes later, to find there was no encouragement at the bottom of it. The hard fact was that they'd strip him of asylum soon, and then he'd have nothing. Somewhere between that Eindhoven rally and today, that young tiger had died and been replaced with a harmless academic.
The letter was just a formality. His time had already gone, and he was alone.
The whole mess of whose religion is right aside, the fact is people act like theirs is, and sometimes amazing things happen as a result. Case in point: a boy is born in one of the poorest corners of the world and decides to devote his life to the defense of his faith. He lives only on what he can beg by day, and hangs about the shrine in his village by night, watching for wrongdoers. One night, a masked man breaks into the shrine hoping to steal the relic within—allegedly a fragment of Saint Rock's helmet. The boy, sleep-deprived, dehydrated and starving, attacks the man and calls out so loudly the air rakes open his dusty throat. He is thrown off by the much larger man, but clings to his legs and slows him so that the priest and a few other local men arrive.
The boy is lauded for his faith, and the priest adopts him. With regular meals and rigorous training, the boy grows big and strong; when he comes of age he formally enters the service of the Remnant Church as a Vigilant. The boy distinguishes himself year after year, goes out of his way to pursue ever more challenging training regimens until he is a young man entrusted with the training of others. In honor of his success, he is appointed a Captain of Vigils at the age of twenty-six, the youngest ever to be honored with the task of guarding a Cardinal.
Now suppose that same man, less than a year later, is shot through the liver by one of his own, and has to watch helplessly as the rest of his unit is slaughtered by enemies that appear out of nowhere, and the Cardinal under his charge loaded into the back of a black truck that drives off, leaving him to bleed out by the side of the road, townsfolk too scared to act but not too scared to watch.
Cardinal Katherin Eckhart imagined that would put a dent in someone's faith; simply taking the transcript of the inquest was doing a number on hers. Yet, Captain Browning stood there with his hands folded behind his back, his eyes fixed on the five people looming over him in judgment. Hastily restitched ceremonial shirt hid sutures and sutures held his guts back from slithering out; thin threads upon thin threads.
"Have you had time to reconsider the information you gave us prior to recess?" Cardinal Basajuan Vakenuz, seated at the center of the bench, adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the notes Eckhart had handed him when they'd last adjourned.
Captain Browning nodded. "I have, Your Eminence. I stand by my account. Guardsman Meng drew his pulser and shot me through the articulating plates in the lower back of my armor. This was a signal for an ambush that resulted in the death of my men and the capture of Cardinal Hossein."
Not that anyone knew how Vakenuz looked when he was happy, but he was not someone you wanted to see disappointed. He slowly removed his spectacles and set them down on the stack of papers before him, folding his hands.
"The problem I see with your account, Captain, is that the records state that Guardsman Taylor Meng was missing, presumed dead as of a clash with raiders near the Jakarta Exclusion Zone fifteen months ago."
Eckhart winced though she'd known what was coming. The light in Captain Browning's eyes weakened, but fought fiercely for its place; he hadn't known.
"Your Eminence, that's impossible, the vetting process—"
"Was your responsibility, you damned fool! And because you failed in it, a Cardinal of this church is missing, almost certainly dead!" The narrow-faced man with a thick red mustache shuddered as he spoke, as though he scared himself.
"Peace," Vakenuz said, waving a hand. "Archbishop Brinner has a point, however inappropriately put across." He leaned back and waited just long enough for that narrow, box-like head to bow. "I do not believe that you are lying to us, Captain, but that leaves only the alternative that you failed to take appropriate precautions. This cost lives. In this matter, there is no room for clemency."
Eckhart's pen felt suddenly heavy as she saw her hand transcribe the words. She had sat in enough of these meetings to hear the next ones before Vakenuz opened his mouth.
"You are hereby discharged from the Vigils. You are to return your equipment to the armory immediately, and surrender any unused stimulants to the apothecaries. You will not be excommunicated, but you shall be barred from ever serving the Church in any capacity from hereon."
"But, but, Your Eminence, the Church . . . It's been my whole life, I—"
"And that life ends now. I pray you find peace in your new one, Mister Browning."
The echo revolved about the round chamber, falling upon Browning from every angle until he must have felt suffocated by it. The strength and discipline melted away, and the heartbroken, scared, starving little boy looked out from behind the proud man's face as he shuffled away.
Eckhart had looked into the fates of discharged Vigilants once; they were God's own stim addicts, trained by the best to fight and kill, so nearly all of them took up with the militaries of secular states, or went freelance to pay for their addiction. She gave it six months before Browning would be pumped full of toxic second-rate stim and staring down plasma rifle sights at his former brethren.
"The transcript, if you would." Vakenuz was standing over her, holding out his hand. She passed them off and he began to look them over slowly, clearing his throat just loud enough to be heard. The three archbishops raced to see who could flee the chamber the fastest. Space emptied, he handed the notes back to her with a nod.
"We have been forced into a reactive position. We have no information as to who was responsible, and the range of sensitive information Cardinal Hossein was in possession of is too great to tell what they specifically wanted," he said. He was not looking at her, he never did in these moments. She knew he had no interest in talking to her, merely in talking to himself and being overheard. Still, the matter seemed too important to worry about etiquette.
"I could be of more use if you'd give me access to her dossier."
"She was be—"
"Behind the White Veil, I know. But you might find the rest of the Collegium more cooperative if you didn't keep so many secrets from them."
Vakenuz studied her for a moment, then went back to ignoring her. "It would be ineffectual to spread resources across every potential point of attack. There must be a way to figure out where the most likely—"
"At least tell Cardinal Dorji," Eckhart said.
Vakenuz stiffened, then surged out the chamber as though exorcised. Dorji would like that image, she figured.
The White Veil meant Hossein was privy to details about the seventeen most important Exclusion Zones and was responsible for . . . well, Eckhart didn't rightly know what went on behind the White Veil, just that it was terribly important and periodically someone outside the Church would try to peek behind it. In the past, they'd been foiled, identified, and they and their entire circle of friends and family cut from the world like a cancer.
Sooner or later, either the Church would change their stance, or someone was going to succeed. This sort of thing had been true as long as there had been people. Simple pragmatism should have taken the edge off Eckhart's fears now that it had played out.
It should have.
Cain had hoped to savor the sea breeze and gentle sunlight more as he sat with a newspaper at his favorite cafe; the pistol' snub-nose jabbing cold into his back every time he shifted distracted. He chewed his sandwich and sipped his sparkling water slowly in defiance.
I always imagined more of a blaze of glory at the end, he thought. Regulars held their usual places—even Andrey, the burly Remnant Church snitch, was seated at his same old table, filling out a crossword.
You couldn't even be bothered to spy on my last lecture, you thoughtless bastard. Though if I were worth spying on anymore . . .
"May I sit here?" Neither that voice nor the face it paired with had come around in over a decade.
"Well, well, Mister Vaughn. Last time I saw you, I could still speak Spanish," Cain said, taking his time looking up from his plate. Met with a far better-dressed figure than he'd expected, he leaned back to take the sum in. "Fat years lately?"
"That's a way to put it," Vaughn said, reaching over to put a long, thin cigarette out in the ash tray. Immaculate white linen shirt on bronze skin: he must have been in town a while. "Not like I've changed my take, fifteen percent off the top. It's the manufacturers; now that people are starting to build machines again, they'll pay anything for old tech. Especially your old friend Doppler. Some of the kids going on these digs retire after one good one."
"Sounds nice." Cain noticed the occasional flash of blinding light was reflecting off a signet ring on Vaughn's right hand.
"Well, my bank account likes it. Martin likes it, but between you and me, I miss the whole 'heresy for the sake of heresy' thing you and the old breed had going," Vaughn said, flagging down a waiter. He set a slim nude leather suitcase down as he took a seat. "I'll have whatever he had."
"Thanks, Keenan. I can always count on you to cheer me up."
"Beg pardon?"
"'Old breed?' Christ. Surprised Martin's still with you," Cain said, chuckling despite himself. "So, to what does a washed up codger like me owe the visit of a fixed up codger like you?"
Vaughn rapped the table with a single knuckle. "Not here. Somewhere more private; you're being watched."
"Yes, Andrey, I know. Get a load of this." Cain stood up slowly from his seat. "Andrey! Over here, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine!" He waved vigorously and savored the sight of Vaughn's natural pallor fighting back from behind his hard-earned tan.
"Eusebio, are you ins—" he plugged up his hiss with cigarette, lighter, and practiced nonchalance when Andrey lumbered into earshot.
"Afternoon, gentlemen," he said. "I was sorry to hear about your recent reversal, Doctor Cain."
Cain blinked for a moment—reversal? Of course you'd know, but have the taste and decency not to bring it up, you oaf.
"I'll be sad to see you leave Patras, but I don't think anyone will mind if I give you a few days' head-start for good behavior. So, a friend of Cain's? How'd that happen?"
"Derrick Anson," Vaughn said, offering a hand easy as you like. "Worked cinematography on that documentary they put out about Cain twenty years back."
"I see."
But he didn't see. There hadn't been a documentary; Andrey was too thick and Vaughn too slick. It didn't matter, the well-meaning fool had stepped on Cain's jest and spirit. He sank back into his chair and waited for Andrey to lose interest in Vaughn and leave.
"—ebio. Eusebio?"
"What?" Cain felt the sting of his own venom in his mouth, saw Vaughn arch a brow at him. "Sorry, sorry. You were saying?"
"I wasn't. But I wanted to ask what he meant by your reversal."
"You, my friend," Cain said, "are looking at a man without a country. City council belongs to a pro-Remnant party now, so does the university, so they've fired me. You can guess what comes next."
"Oh. Oh God, I'm sorry to—do you need help getting out of here?"
Cool steel of pistol against sun-baked back. "I have an exit strategy."
"But if you're on the out, why did he—"
"The Church doesn't give a damn about me anymore, Keenan. I doubt the Cardinals even know if I'm still alive. But the councilors think they'll earn some points this way, and the bounty hunters will take the easy scalp. At any rate, what did you have to tell me that was so secret?"
Vaughn scratched at his brow and mouthed something to himself that Cain couldn't make out behind his hand. "I guess maybe this is timely for you then, but if you get caught remember we've never met."
"Hah! That takes me back, but let me stop you right there. I look cut out for a dig to you?"
"No, you look cut out for the retirement home," Vaughn said, taking a drag, smoke billowing heavenward. "Just hear me out, then you can tell me how awful I am for wasting a few minutes of your busy day."
Cain threw up a resigning hand.
"I've got information from a credible source about what's under Exclusion Zone Beta." Softly spoken, cradling its meaning from the world and the world from it.
"Beta," Cain repeated. "How?"
"You know I can't out my sources, not even to you. But at least take a look." Thin smiling, he reached in his suitcase for a folder to hand Cain. Two sets of drawings and descriptions; one for the Church's fortifications around the site, one for an underground structure that read like a laboratory.
"I refuse to believe this information could get out without someone in the Church knowing," Cain said.
"Maybe."
Vaughn wasn't selling; there wasn't any need to. Each page tantalized further: massive generators, surfaces made of previously unknown materials, networks of apparent escape passages, and everywhere wires feeding from computers embedded into each surface towards a single room even the Church couldn't—or wouldn't—open. Cain sighed and offered the folder back to Vaughn, who waved him off.
"I have copies. You keep that, have a think. If you go for it, I'll take my usual percentage off the top of whatever you find. If not, I don't think I'll have a hard time finding other takers."
"Who else knows?"
"Nobody. You're my first stop since getting the tip."
Cain snorted. Vaughn took a few quick bites from his sandwich, took his suitcase in hand, dipped his chin.
"I'm guessing there are three ways I might end up hearing about you in the news soon. For my part, I hope it's because you piss someone off again. Thanks for lunch."
He melded into the crowd, leaving Cain to pick up the bill and walk, folder in hand, down to the waterfront. Gulls shot fully-formed out from the backdrop of clouds; near-still turquoise water bustled with fish. The young men and women walked arm-in-arm along the sea's edge. The pistol was the only cold thing in the whole world.
When I was a tiger, he thought, I could have done it. When I was a tiger.
He would shred the papers, toss them in the water, then wait so that the sunset would be the last thing he saw. Then, blam.
A woman walking along the beach lost her straw hat in a sudden gust off the water. She did not chase, but watched it whip out into the ocean, still. She was near Cain's age, dark and holding on to her beauty. She did not notice him, but somehow when she started to laugh at her misfortune, she challenged him, heaped him. Before he knew it, he found himself at a pay-phone, clutching the folder.
"Gudaitis Imports. How may I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like to ship an antique porcelain vase."
"Just one?"
"Just one."
"Sir, we are a major sh—"
"It's a forgery for a foolish buyer."
A silence from the other end.
"I see. We can promise discretion in return for certain considerations."
"Of course. Is the old address still in your range?"
"It is, sir."
"Can you do three-day shipping from Patras?"
"Of course. Will that be all?"
"It will."
"Very good. A pleasure doing business with you, sir."
Cain hung up after the click and took a deep breath. One more ride, then.
Sigmund resented that after years of poring over blueprints both old-world and new, straining his eyes chasing access seams in salvaged machines, and putting thousands of late nights into precision soldering, it was contracts and press release drafts that finally forced him to cave and get glasses. He was glad to hand the offending sheaf back to Yuchen.
"Seems like everything's in good shape," he said, scrunching his eyes tight.
"Almost everything," Yuchen said, sorting the papers without needing to look at them. "When was the last time you slept, Doctor?"
"Just this morning."
"Not that Dymaxion nonsense. Actual sleep."
"You got me there." Sigmund chuckled though he felt guilty for it. Yuchen had a hard lot as Chief of Staff when her CEO was allergic to delegating. "I promise I won't touch a single piece of work for the rest of the day."
"Due respect, Doctor, that's not enough," she said, setting the stack of papers down on his desk and pointing him towards his suite bathroom to face the thing he'd avoided carefully for the last twenty-eight hours: the mirror. "In two days you're announcing the first brand new robot line since the Cataclysm. We need to be a bit more considerate about imaging than this."
"I think you're exaggerating just a—"
"You look like a hobo aspiring to be a mad scientist. Go home and sleep for fourteen hours. Then I'm going to send one of the interns to make sure you shower and shave properly. You should take time off until the press conference."
"But there's the articulator problem with—"
"—a model that we're not planning to announce for three quarters, and which very capable engineers you hired yourself are handling. In fact, as you well know, every single person in this building is a genius handpicked by you, so they can handle it."
"All right, all right." Sigmund sighed, tilting his head this way and that, studying the reflection. "Oof."
"Exactly." Yuchen moved straight to the phone, called up a cab, then ushered Sigmund into an elevator. A security men waited in the lobby to guide him into warm midday, white stone edifices reflecting sun from every angle until he climbed into the cab, windows mercifully tinted. While the cab was stopped at a light, he watched a few children talking on a street corner: backpacks and Renaissance Academy patches.
The driver took him deep into Old Town. A well-kept, narrow apartment building, a robot standing by the glass door, dull brassy neck and head rising from well-fit grey jacket.
"Welcome home, Doctor Doppler," it said. "It has been a few days."
"Busy few days at the office. We're launching that new robot line I told you about," Sigmund said.
"Very good, sir."
What, if anything, should I make of the lack of reaction? "By the way, how are you holding up, Alex?"
"Well, sir. However, I will need a tune-up soon, as my elbow and knee joints appear to be wearing down."
"Don't bother going to a shop for that, I'll take care of you this weekend, okay?"
"Yes sir, thank you sir."
Through the door, the concierge desk—another robot.
"Doctor Doppler, there is a message for you from two days ago. This unit tried to contact you at your office, but was informed that you were busy."
"A message from whom?"
"The gentleman would only say that he was with Gudaitis Imports. He said that a vase you ordered will be arriving three days from the date of the call."
That should have meant something, but all meaning was on the other side of a good sleep. Sigmund nodded anyway and went up to the elevator.
"By the way, offer's still on the table. I can remove those language constraints. It's not wrong for a robot to say 'I,' you know."
"Very good, sir." Not dismissive, not upset, not hesitant. It simply did not register want. Sigmund had had to bully the doorman robot into letting him call it Alex. Such simple problems unresolved. Yet, in two days he was going to release new robots into the world. His brain rebuked him for getting thoughtful in such condition with the first throbbings of a headache, and he stumbled out of the elevator into his condo feeling the wisdom of Yuchen's advice.
"Esther, I'm—" The words echoed out empty against the high ceilings. "I really am tired," he muttered. Staring him in the face opposite the elevator door was a photo of himself with a green-eyed woman pressing her lips against his bearded cheek, teasing the camera. Legs he barely felt took him to the bedroom, pitching face-first into the still unmade tangle of sheet and blanket and finally sleeping.
He checked the bedside clock: two-thirty-six in the morning. Not the fourteen hours Yuchen had ordered, but close enough to pass. He rolled up onto his haunches, peeled his shirt off and dragged himself to a cold shower, after which he stepped to the sink and lathered his face. He was drawing the straight razor across his cheek when he remembered the message the concierge had for him. Vilnius Imports; antique vase.
"Eusebio," he whispered. Red at the edge of his sight; he'd nicked himself. "Shit." He tabled that realization, finished working the blade across his face and chin, slapped a small bandage on. A quick call to Bucharest Terminal's night desk confirmed a bus from Patras arriving around seven o'clock, carrying an old chapter of his life. There were a thousand good reasons not to meet him, but he could hear his wife's voice lamenting that none of them would matter.
That's why you fell for me, isn't it? He thought. He debated heading straight to the Terminal to wait, but the poor intern Yuchen would send for him didn't deserve that. He pulled a random book from a random shelf, settling into his sofa.
After all this time, Eusebio.
Sky brightening, the concierge rang and sent up the intern.
"Good morning Doctor," the young man said, holding up two coffees. "Miss Zhang sent me to—"
"Right, thanks for coming. You drove here?"
"I . . . did, why?"
"I'll take that," Sigmund said, grabbing one of the coffees and taking a long gulp. "We're going to Bucharest Terminal to pick up a friend of mine. Thanks for the coffee, by the way."
"Oh, uh, you're welcome."
One brief, uncomfortable ride later, they were parking and walking into Bucharest Terminal, a sweep of marble, steel, and glass that had replaced the old Gara de Nord in Sigmund's youth. He had to stop and wait for the awed intern a few times lest they be pulled apart by the shifting human tide. The train concourse melted into a bus concourse not much less crowded. It struck him, as they pushed ahead, that he couldn't be sure what he was looking for, having not laid eyes on Eusebio Cain in thirteen years.
"Sig!" Just barely breaking through the crowdsong, then, louder. "Sig!"
Though the man waving his hand overhead had lost most of his hair, there was no denying it was Eusebio. He sat on a bench, a duffel to either side, scrambling to gather his things when he saw himself recognized.
"Is that your friend, Doctor? He looks kind of familiar."
"He gets that a lot," Sigmund said, walking briskly.
"I wasn't sure if you'd gotten my message. I—who is that?"
"One of my interns. Just hand me one of those." He found himself reflexively looking around for any sign they were being watched. "We have a car, come on."
They put Cain's things in the back seat with him, climbed into the car, and drove back to the condo with several minutes' silence.
"So, are you famous or something? I swear I've seen your face before," the intern said. Sigmund was impressed that the young man had held off so long.
"Your boss and I used to work together," Eusebio said. It sounded so easy, so natural. In the rear-view mirror, Sigmund could see that he was looking out the window. He'd grown smaller, more drawn, a piece of old rope whose slack-length had been cut away over years. The intern nodded, asked nothing more for the rest of the drive.
"Listen, I know you can't not tell Yuchen about this, so don't worry about tattling on me. You have my blessing," Sigmund said as he and Eusebio stepped out and picked up the duffels. The intern didn't look entirely persuaded or relieved as he drove away.
Eusebio looked admiringly at the doorman and concierge as they passed. "Finally back in civilization," he said. "Thanks for meeting me."
"Of course."
Eusebio whistled as they stepped out the elevator into his unit.
"Nice. I guess that engineering firm of yours is doing well?"
"It is."
"And where's Esther? I meant to apologize to both of you for not attending your wedding but—"
"She died. Two years ago."
". . . I'm sorry. How?"
"Mesothelioma. We had a lot of good years together, I try to focus on that. And I've got my work to keep me busy. Here, just put that down anywhere."
Sigmund led him to the living room and the two sat facing each other. He saw Eusebio's gaze moving from picture to picture, seeming to want to say more on Esther; Sigmund wasn't sure he could handle that.
"If you went through Gudaitis, it must be serious," he said.
"I lost my professorship to a Remnant take-over. I wasn't going to stick around until they revoked my asylum."
"Well, you're welcome to stay at my place until you find your feet. Actually, if you're going to be here anyway, you might consider working at my firm. Your knack for mechanical eng—"
"Thanks, but I didn't come here for a handout," Eusebio said, shooting up from the sofa and rummaging through one of his duffels. The folder he handed to Sigmund was slim, but heavy freighted with memories of so many just like it.
"Eusebio, is this what I think it is?"
"From Keenan Vaughn, no less."
The reasons that hadn't kept him from meeting his old friend came back to him with painful clarity. He willed the tightening in his chest down.
"Don't you think we're a little old for this, Eusebio? Listen, you've traveled a long way. You've had a tough time. Why not take a nice hot shower first?"
"I could use one." Eusebio sniffed himself and recoiled. "Just promise me you'll have a look at that meanwhile." He gathered a change of clothes from his bag and Sigmund led him to the bathroom. Hearing the water running, Sigmund returned to the living room and took up the folder, shaking his head.
A man sails face-first into the concrete outside the thrumming nightclub. Friends admirably try to gather him up and shout at the tall white-haired figure showing his back. Four women sharing the corner with this drama look on annoyed; people on the three opposed corners are eager for more.
"Fucking punk, you know who I am?" said the recently airborne man. He wiped away grit and raised a fist at the unmoving back of Preston DeWitt.
"The eighth guy this week to ask me that question. None of them got back in either." His Romanian was getting better, he thought. Rather than compliment him on his progress, the lightly tossed gentleman was growling and taking heavy steps. Preston spun about, rushed in past his slow, wobbling right cross and shoved shoulder against chest slapping him across the left cheek as he stumbled.
"What the? You little shit, I'll—"
Now the right cheek. The poor bastard's eyes lost focus for a moment, but he reared back for another amateur swing. Preston sighed; in these daily tussles, the only effect of neural accelerators was to make slow people seem even slower. While the chief idiot was writing a check his body couldn't cash, there was time to size up his friends—they didn't look like the action types, leaving a simple answer.
Left cheek again. Right cheek again. Left. Right. Left right leftright leftright and down, knees hitting pavement. Preston sucked on his teeth: sensory amplifiers made the stinging in his palms clearer.
"Are we done yet?" he asked.
Too dazed to respond, the man was led off by his muttering, glaring entourage. Preston nodded to the waiting doorman and was just stepping back into the blue light of the club when he heard applause.
"Very easily done. You certainly know how to use your cybernetics."
"Thanks," Preston said, turning to see a man clearly well into middle-age and dressed for a beach holiday. "Uh, not to be rude, but you don't think you're getting in looking like that, do you?"
"I'm Sigmund's friend."
Preston blinked; when Doctor Doppler had called saying his friend had a job for him, he'd imagined someone shadier. He wondered what it said about himself that he thought someone looked too harmless.
"Oh, uh, right. He's cool, Florin," Preston said to the doorman.
"What? Come on, look at him. I'll get fired for letting him in!"
"Is there a dress code?" the old man asked, perking a brow.
"No dress code. Tell him, Florin."
"There's a dress code."
"Fuck you, big guy. I'll stick him way in a back corner, the boss will never see him."
The old man, now looking real skeptical, let himself be led into the club. He was smirking when light and sound first washed over them, but something wiped the smirk off his face and put his head on a swivel. Well, that was only fair: he drew his share of boggled eyes and lips curling back over gums until he was hidden away in an obscure corner like a shameful magazine.
"Just wait here for a second, I need to check in with my boss."
Daria, the club's owner, pored over finances in her office, pausing to give the briefest of looks at Preston.
"Tell me that loudmouthed idiot and his flunkies are gone for good."
"They are."
"Good. He always took too long to clear his tab anyway. So?"
"That friend I was telling you about? He's here. You know I haven't taken any of my breaks the past week."
"Yeah, you're good. Your thirty minutes starts now. Close that door on your way out."
The old man was sat perfectly still where Preston had left him. The strange look hadn't left his face either.
"Sorry about that. The name's Preston, but you can call me Dynamo."
The old man nodded slowly, screwing up his lips as though tasting something sour. "Mm, no. I don't think I will. Did Sig tell you who I am?"
'Do you know who I am?' echoed in Preston's head; the snicker slipped out. "Uh-uh. He was kinda cagey about it, actually."
That seemed to satisfy the old man.
"I'm Eusebio Cain."
For that name you either break out the pitchforks or the autograph book, Preston thought. He thought of his parents, devout Remnant constantly having to denounce their misled son in the papers. He shook Cain's hand firmly, imagining his father's head exploding at the sight.
"When I was with the Ghosts, we used to talk about you all the time. You're, like, a legend."
"Like one, or actually one?" he laughed to himself; for a split-second, Preston thought he looked sad, but it must have been a mistake. "Sig told me about your time with the Ghosts. I understand no crew has hit as many of the Exclusion Zones as you."
"Man, those were the days," Preston said, sinking into the booth seat and stretching his arms overhead. "But most of them cashed out when we got rich selling off what we dug up, so here I am."
"Here you are," Cain said. "I respect that, actually, given how rich your parents are. You could have had everything handed to you, but you're choosing another path."
"Yeah, real respectable," Preston said, waving his finger about idly.
"What would you say if I told you that I want to hit Exclusion Zone Beta, and I want you to handle the muscle side of things?"
Spiking heart rate, Preston was stoic without.
"I'd say a little foreplay would be nice before you just stick me."
"Charming."
"Seriously?" Preston whistled. "I guess . . . I'd want to know what's up with the way you've been looking past me at the people in the club. I mean, I know this probably isn't your scene but—"
"Security and customers."
"What?"
"Only two things I don't see robots doing in this city, working security or being customers. You've got robot waiters and waitresses, robot dancers, robot janitors. I saw a man in here with a robot prostitute. So open to robots, but they're not trusted with force and they won't be served, even by their own kind," Cain said. "Hell, from what I hear, you're so full of implants you're damn-near a robot yourself."
"I guess so," Preston said, shrugging. "So?"
"So, I'm offering you a chance to be a part of changing that. Or a chance to make bank off changing it, whichever one appeals."
"See, if you'd led with that, I'd have just said 'Tell me more.'"
The ride back home from the press conference was uncomfortable for Sigmund. The conference itself had gone off perfectly; even the brief mingling in the hotel lobby afterward had been relatively painless. Then Yuchen had 'offered' to drive him home. He'd been holding his breath since, she saying nothing.
Twelve silent minutes: he admitted defeat.
"Look, I know you have reservations about my friendship with—"
"No, Doctor, I don't have anything to say about your personal life, your friendships. I do have some serious reservations about finding Eusebio God Damn Cain walking around your kitchen right as we're doing this product launch! The public perception—"
"Yuchen, we were already riding the Cataclysm line in the first place."
"That doesn't make it smart to play hopscotch with it! And now you have that drug-addicted kid crashing with you. And what, you don't think the papers are going to find out about this? You don't think the local Bishop's going to raise hell? This isn't Africa, Doctor! People aren't that liberal."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"I do. I do." Sigmund fixed her firmly with a stare until she'd met it. "And as far as the product launch, we are sticking to the plan. We are going slow and steady to get people used to the idea. But I built a way of moving the needle forward that requires those sorts of compromises. Eusebio is willing to stake his life on reaching for the big changes, and if I ever believed in that, or in him, the least I can do is put a roof over his head for a few days."
"But that's not all you're doing, is it? You sent Cain to meet that druggie—"
"The boy has a name, Preston DeWitt. He's a recovered addict."
"Oh, don't remind about his name. His family being who they are just makes this that much worse. Besides, he got fired from a bouncer job a month ago for getting caught with a dose of Short."
"You've been digging? Come on . . ."
"It was clear you weren't thinking about how all this could blow back on you, on the robots, on your people, Doctor! God knows what I'm going to say if I have to tell everyone."
"For what it's worth, I appreciate that you haven't said anything to the firm."
"How could I? Every one of the people who work for you lives and dies for your vision. If I say 'Hey everyone, Doctor Doppler is willing to gamble everything to take a trip down memory lane with an international terrorist,' it would break them."
Tight-wound silence.
"I don't like doing this," Yuchen said. "Talking like this, with you. I'd rather have talks that are safe for the office."
"I'm sorry to put you in this position," said Sigmund.
"Just tell me that you're not going to get involved in whatever Cain is up to."
Sigmund said nothing.
"You can't be serious."
"I wish I could tell you and help you understand."
Yuchen controlled her breathing.
"How long till you leave and how long will you be gone?"
"Eight days, then another ten-to-eighteen."
"What should I tell people if they ask?"
"That I've gone to investigate a potential acquisition from a salvager. You're the only one who has seen Cain with me who recognizes him, so—"
"I'll say he's a middleman on the deal. Fine." They turned into the condominium garage, pulled into a parking spot, and sat listening to the engine idle. "Is there . . . what are the safety risks?"
"Potentially fatal."
Her eyes clinched shut, drawing her face in around them. "And you really think whatever this is all about is worth it?"
"I do. If I die, then at least I go out on a high note. The first line is launched safely. I can rest easy knowing the firm's in your hands."
"Right. Well, there's no point trying to talk you down, but I hope I'll see you in the office tomorrow," Yuchen said. Behind her eyes, lists were being rewritten, tables reordered, plans redrawn. Sigmund at once admired her for taking it in stride, setting to work, and hated himself for hanging her and the firm out to dry at such a critical moment.
Still, if Eusebio was even close to right about what awaited them, it would be worth it a million times over.