Welcome to the 13th and final chapter of "Paradise Regained", loyal readers! I said I would end it here, but I didn't say it'd be regular length.
Mucho props go out to my man Kasey Kagawa, who - as of this chapter - isn't just responsible for all the good ideas, but also actually co-writing with me. If people start showing actual emotional range from here on, blame him. ;)
You've probably noticed that I stepped up the pace to push this one and the previous chapter out. That's because I have some other things to take care of, but couldn't get started on them with this story still hanging over my head. So, the next story might take a while - maybe it won't start until 2010. But I hope that when I do start it, I'll be less distracted, better organized and equipped with better pacing. (Let my fail be a lesson to you: get your subplots straight *before* you start writing.)
No commentary on this one, because it was written in a marathon session in 1/3rd the time of the other chapters yet is almost twice as long.
Okay, I'm just rambling at this point. Enjoy the show, and keep your eyes open for the next story. Jaime Sommers WILL RETURN IN "Big Sister".
---
Jaime's wake-up call came in the form of 125 pounds of weight on top of her, a vague sensation of pressure and warmth rising to the acute awareness of somebody lying on top of her, cheek to cheek. Then Will snored next to her ear and shifted slightly, breaking the poetic nature of the moment, but Jaime smiled anyway. The buzzing of the vending machine's fluorescent lighting drove her the rest of the way into wakefulness, as the rest of the Berkut break room slowly came into focus.
"Will," she said, "wake up."
That didn't get much of a reaction, so she squirmed a little underneath him.
"Will, please climb down."
More snoring.
"You know, if I get up, you'll end up on the floor," Jaime whispered jokingly.
Will stirred briefly, but then settled back down.
"Floor it is, then," Jaime said, and started to sit up.
That got Will's attention quickly; with groggily moaned excuses, he half-slipped, half-climbed off her, rolling onto his side with a tired achiness in every move. Jaime wondered if maybe throwing him to the ground after all would have been less awkward.
"Morning, Jaime," Will moaned, managing a half-smile through the pain of detoxing.
"Good morning. The chair was too cold, hm?" Jaime asked.
"In my defense, you took the good blanket," Will said. "Also, you're much more comfortable than the chair to sleep on."
"You old charmer," Jaime said. "Nice to hear I'm better than a piece of furniture."
Will's smile couldn't untie the knot in her stomach. The morning didn't feel quite right, like there was something she was supposed to be doing, but wasn't.
"Oh my God, Becca," Jaime said. "I left her alone last night and -"
"She'll be alright," Will said. "Come on, she's 16. She can handle a night without you."
"What about her breakfast?" Jaime asked, running her hands through her hair. "And how's she going to get to school? She's going to be so upset -"
"Jaime," Will said, a little more forceful than necessary, "she'll be okay. Really. She'll be fine for now. We need to take care of ourselves first, alright?"
"She's my sister," Jaime said, "I think that legally entitles me to all the worrying in the world." She sighed. "But I guess you're right." Jaime stood up and stretched. "I need a shower, I'm still dirty and...bloody." She shivered. "I'd like to get that off of me."
"I could help with that," Will said.
---
Becca wasn't awake. At least that's what she tried to convince herself of. Her hand reached out for the alarm clock that shook her bedframe, trying to turn it off. It clearly couldn't be trying to wake her up, because this was a dream, right? There was still time to sleep, time to get rest. The alarm and the light shining on her face weren't there, just clever tricks her brain was playing on her for an unknown but undoubtedly nefarious reason.
Her hand slapped the side of her bed and didn't find anything. This required more activity than a half-sleeping teenage brain could handle; by the time she'd tapped around enough to find it and hit the snooze button, the fight against being awake was already lost. Becca went limp, letting her arm droop over the edge of the mattress, and considered her options. Going back to sleep was right out. The rational part of her brain - in situations like this, always the bad guy - told her that trying to go back to sleep was not an option. But lying in bed? Just a few more minutes? The lazy part of her brain made a good case for that. Hey, lying limp in a cozy bed and closing your eyes is kind of like sleep, right?
The alarm clock went off again. This time, Becca refused to dignify it with even a single movement; she merely mumbled a weak "Shut up" and left it at that. Her hearing loss was now coming up to almost 10 years - but she still remembered, faintly, how annoying the beeping of a regular alarm clock was, and concluded that it wasn't half as bad as feeling your entire bed vibrate underneath you. After a minute of this, Becca finally resolved to get up. Grab a hot shower. Have a nice breakfast - Jaime was probably already working on that.
"And math," Becca said to herself when she climbed out of the bed. Her binder and textbook were still on her desk, already opened to the right pages. A glance at the clock showed her at 15 minutes later than when she'd intended to get up - okay, quick hot shower, then. She stumbled out of her room and closed the door behind her. The bathroom was cold, to her displeasure, which left her wondering how Jaime had showered in the cold. It was then that Becca's thought process, finally fully accounted for, integrated this morsel of information with the lack of Jaime in the kitchen - and, as a quick check revealed, her room.
So she hadn't come back home last night. That meant Becca would have to toast her own bagels - alright, doable -, make her own tea - also simple - and take the bus to school. That last one was a bit of a sticking point, because that meant leaving a good deal earlier, and a bit of quick math on Becca's part led her to the conclusion that she had about twenty minutes to get ready.
Becca cursed.
---
On Jaime's second visit to the showers, the room looked dimmer than she remembered it, and owing to the early hour of the morning the heat was still off. Still, it couldn't keep her from getting out of the sweatclothes. The cold of the air was distant, and with careful steps, she approached one of the showerheads and turned it on.
Hot water solves a stunning amount of problems.
After enjoying the rising feeling of heat from her toes to her shoulders, Jaime relaxed a little, ran her hands through her hair and even allowed herself a small smile again. The small, warm rain of water was like armor, leaving her far removed from the world and the trouble that waited there for her. For now, she was safe.
The door to her shower cubicle opened, and Will stepped in; Jaime briefly recoiled for no reason she could find, but after a second the relaxed feeling returned, and she showed her smile to him. Under the shower, Will looked mostly lithe, with just a bit of flab around his stomach area. He noticed her attention and smiled back.
At that point, the kiss was pretty much inevitable.
The two of them leaned against the back wall of the cubicle, feeling the warmth of the water and each other's bodies in their embrace. The hot water was above them, around them, between them. In the intensity of the moment, Will's hands grabbed her arms, holding them so tightly that they ached, feeding the moment and her excitement.
At least, her left arm did. The right merely dutifully reported the pressure. Jaime's part of the embrace slackened; she released her lips from Will's, and after a moment, she softly pushed him away from her.
"What's wrong?" Will asked.
"It doesn't feel right," Jaime said quietly. "It's not right, my arm, it doesn't feel real." She looked at her bionic arm, the water swiftly sheeting off of it, like off the windshield of a car. "It doesn't even look real. Will, it -"
"Shhh," Will said softly. "It's different. I know. But it's okay, Jaime. I'll make it right. Just tell me what should be different, and I can have a better one made up."
"I don't want a better one," Jaime said, backing into the corner and folding into herself. "I just - I just..." Neither of them know what exactly to say. "Maybe you should go," Jaime said slowly. Her skull was an echo chamber for the pounding headache that expanded to fill every crack of space inside it.
Will took a step towards her. "Jaime, just tell me what's wrong -"
"Get back!" Jaime shouted, surprised at the strength of her own outburst. Her arms assumed a defensive posture by themselves, and her lip started to tremble. "Get back, Will. Get back."
Will's expression grew serious. He raised his hands slowly and backed out of the cubicle, closing the door behind him.
"I'll - I'll just take this shower, okay?" he said. She heard his bare feet pad off to the other end of the showers. A door slid open and closed far away from her. Another showerhead turned on. The water still rained onto her, long streams and droplets heading downward over her body while she tried to get a grip onto what had just happened between her and Will. After a while, she turned her back to the door, faced the wall and let the water stream over her face. Her head spinning, she clenched the right hand into a fist, drew the arm back and punched the wall. The tiles splintered with a sharp crack, as if she needed more proof of the inhuman power that occupied the place her arm should be.
Slowly, she drew the fist away from the impact zone and looked. The smartskin covering on the knuckles was intact, but sharp splinters from the tile were stuck in the fingers. There was no pain, only pressure. One by one, she pulled out the splinters and dropped them; the cuts in the synthetic skin closed shortly thereafter.
What are you? she thought, as if the machine could answer her. You're not me. That's not me.
---
Jaime stepped out of the shower to find Will sitting on one of the wooden benches, already dried off and dressed. With a small smile, he handed her a towel.
"I'm sorry," she stammered, "I didn't -"
"It's okay," Will said. "I'm...I'm not surprised, really."
"That's comforting," Jaime said.
"I'm sorry for this," Will said. "For all of this. I had my head stuck up my ass for the last few days, and you seemed to be taking it well - I didn't pay as much attention as I should have, or explain things very well."
"Like what you do," she said, taking a seat on the bench next to Will.
"It was top secret," Will said, "it is top secret. I never even thought it would come up with you, I didn't...I didn't mean for things to happen the way they did. But they did and I've tried to make the best of it, but that's still not very good, is it? The top pick out of a whole universe of bad choices."
"You could have told me something, anything that was close to the truth. But you didn't."
"Don't you think I thought about that?" Will replied with a hint of anger. "What could I have told you? I work for the government? My work is classified? I'm not really who you think I am? Think about what could happen if people find out what I'm doing here, Jaime. I didn't want to lie to you. I wanted to tell you everything. But I couldn't."
"You just had to protect me," Jaime said.
"Yes, Jaime," Will said. "I had to protect you." He paused for a second. "I had to protect both of us. I'm sorry. Tell me what to do to make it up to you, and I'll do it."
Jaime looked at her right arm, then back at Will. "I want to see the arm. The real thing, without the fake skin."
"I - I don't know if that's such a good idea," Will said.
"No more lies, Will," Jaime said. "I want to know the truth about what this thing is. Show it to me."
"Okay, if you really want to," Will said with a sigh. "But it'll look a little...freaky."
"Everything's a little freaky now," Jaime said with an attempted smile. "I can deal with freaky."
"Okay," Will said. He scooted up next to her on the bench, pulled his ID badge out of his pocket, and ran it over her shoulder, at the fine black line, the gap between where her body stopped and her bionic arm began. The synthetic skin there puffed out a bit, creating a pocket.
"I can feel that," Jaime said. "It's like...tickling."
"Are you absolutely double-strength sure you want to see this?" Will asked.
"Oh, don't make a show out of it," Jaime replied. "Just -"
Will grabbed the synthetic skin and, in one quick jerk, peeled it back to the elbow. The first thing that struck Jaime was how oddly familiar it looked. Instead of pistons, cables and hoses, it looked more like the iPod version of her copy of Gray's Anatomy. The mechanism underneath was mostly matte white, bundled electropolymer fibers making up the meat of it. Jaime spotted a whole forest worth of details - yellowish translucent tubes filled with Ichor, small wiring, a fine surface mesh, diagnostic lights, a connection port, minuscule contractions traveling through the entire arm. In a word, it looked alive, eerily so - just a few degrees off from how an arm should look, but still worlds apart.
"It's an arm," Will said softly. "Muscles, bones, joints, sinews and blood vessels - they're all there. It's built instead of grown, but...it's an arm."
"Wow," Jaime managed to say. She flexed the arm and saw the electropolymer fibers at work, contracting and lenghtening in sync with her movements. Everything moved smoothly. No clacking relays, no grinding gears. Just raw, mechanical elegance. "Can I pull it off?"
"Uh, sure," Will said, looking around. "It's clean enough here."
Jaime took a deep breath, grabbed the loose smartskin and peeled it. With her pull behind it, the skin separated and loosened where necessary, until the fingers slipped out. Jaime held what looked like an opera glove of synthetic skin in her left hand, but her gaze was locked on the right hand, its mechanics now exposed. The delicate fingers show the individual electropolymer strands making up the muscles, wrapping over polished metal joints, hair-thin wires and minuscule tubes of Ichor.
"The knuckle joints are 10,000 dollars each," Will said. "Titanium alloy for strength, bonded to carbon nanofibers and synthetic polymers for smoothness. The upper knuckles are reinforced as impact surfaces. That protects the hand when you're...punching stuff."
Jaime moved the fingers experimentally, dozens of status lights blinking from red to green as their individual muscles contracted and expanded. "That's good, with all the punching I do..."
"Finding the materials that can withstand the full power of your arm wasn't exactly easy."
Jaime's eyes wandered back up to her shoulder, where the border of the smartskin transitioned into tender natural skin. Jaime touched the biological part of her shoulder and felt it, a touch instead of pressure. It was the only part of her arm that told the truth: Jaime's arm had been amputated. She had seen pictures of men and women who had lost limbs in accidents before, and this looked no different, aside from the Ichor tubing and artificial muscle running into her shoulder. With a soft smile, Will placed his fingers on her shoulder and walked them across her back.
"So that's where I start?" Jaime asked.
"Not exactly," Will replied. "Your natural skin, yes. But ultimately, we had to go beneath and replace the shoulder joint, too. It wouldn't have held up to the forces the bionic arm can generate."
"You know," Jaime said with a mixture of jovial and bitter, "that wouldn't be necessary if you guys had just built a normal-strength arm."
"That's not what the military was interested in, though," Will sighed. "They wanted it as good as we could make it." He sat down behind her, and wrapped his arms around her as they both stared at her bionic arm's muscles moving. "Do you feel better now?"
"A little," Jaime said. "I...I didn't know what to expect, really. But I imagined worse." She looked at it a little more. "I'm okay with it. But it's still not me."
"Okay," Will said. "Now, come on. We've got to go to the lab to put your skin back on. Or, if you want, take the rest of it off."
"I'd rather keep my skin, thank you," Jaime said.
---
"Hey, Becca! Here! Over here!" Kate shouted, wearing a too-bright-for-8-AM smile and waving her hand madly. Becca dragged the corners of her mouth upwards and navigated the assault course of unruly freshmen in the school bus, finally making her way to the rear where Kate and a slim handful of her other classmates had staked out their turf. Kate knew that the shouting part was completely unnecessary - in contrast to the waving, which was only mostly unnecessary - but it made for as good a display of cheerful spirit as any. Becca climbed into her seat, gave Kate a quick hug and then let the back of her head hit the headrest. After a second of blissful nothingness, she turned her head to Kate.
"Hey," Becca said.
"Hey yourself, Becca," Kate said. "Woah, caught a bug? Don't get it on me."
Becca turned her her and mock-coughed at Kate. Kate waved the air in front of her away and suppressed a small giggle.
"No, I skipped breakfast," Becca said, "and sleep, kinda. So, uh, math homework?"
"Yeah! It was actually kinda lame how easy it was, I mean, it's just the same thing five times..."
"Can I see it?" Becca asked.
"I got it right, Becca, no sweat," Kate said.
"No, actually," Becca said, then paused and lowered her voice. "I need to copy it."
Kate drew a sharp breath. "For serious? That's not the thing I wanna hear from my study buddy, Becca!"
"I blame last night," Becca said, "I was gonna do it, but -"
"Don't say a word more. Your super-double-secret project, right? You were in Mr. Merchant's office yesterday, walked out with another bag - it's elementary, Watson!"
"Busted and guilty as charged," Becca replied. "My conscience is all heavy now. So, can I -"
"Uh, sure, hang on -" Kate said, digging into her bag. With her head turned away, Becca couldn't read what she said next. "I know I put it here, you sure you're good to write on a bus?"
"Thank you, Katie," Becca said simply. It seemed appropriate.
"Yeah, no biggie," Kate said.
---
Jaime had spent a decent amount of the last days in the bionics lab; the sterile ambiance felt mundane already, and so Jaime was able to offer some constructive criticism when she laid down on the gurney.
"You know, I wouldn't mind a chair," she said. "More doctor, less ICU. And a few plastic flowers would be nice, I guess." Catching Will's credulous look, she added "This is a clean room, right? No real actual flowers, that would be bad. Unless it's actually cool with the tech, then I'm all for it."
"Please hold still, Jaime," Will said. "I need to clean the skin."
He turned his back to her and scampered off to a far corner of the lab, where a large plastic-cased vessel stood. The 'glove' of skin went into it; Jaime's ear picked up a slight sloshing sound from inside the vessel and she sat upright to get a better look at the device. Will bowed down and manipulated a small touchscreen mounted to the apparatus beneath; within the second, the entire contraption started to vibrate, building into a high-frequency buzz that made the hairs on Jaime's neck stand up.
"Ultrasonic cleaner, should be done in a few minutes," Will said, watching the tank do its work.
"Uh huh," Jaime said. She started to poke and run her real hand along the muscles and Ichor tubing in the bionic arm, feeling the artificial fibers contract and release.
"Don't poke the bionic arm, please," Will said, half-joking.
"In a bit," Jaime said. "It's actually rather beautiful without the skin, in a really weird way."
Will looked over his shoulder at her. "This from the woman who was having an existential crisis a half-hour ago about the bionics."
"Yeah, but I didn't know...what it was, I guess. If it was me, or wasn't me. It looked like me, but all of a sudden I can do, see and hear things I couldn't before. It was a dream," she said, lifting her bionic arm up to the bright spotlights in the lab. "But now I know. I lost my arm, and my legs, and - I lost a lot, and they're all fakes now. It's not me. I don't like it, but I can deal with it."
"I can understand that," Will said. "It was just -"
"What?" Jaime asked. Her ear told her of footsteps closing the distance outside the lab, still far too soft to be heard by anyone else.
"The way you...didn't seem to mind, at first," Will said. "I didn't build the bionics to remind people of their losses, Jaime. I built them so they could choose to improve themselves."
"I didn't get a choice, Will."
"I wish you had, Jaime," Will said with a weight on his heart. "I wish we all had." He turned away from Jaime, and a second later the airlock slid open.
Bledsoe walked into the lab, straight back and open eyes like he'd just slept for the exact length of time needed. "Good morning, Anthros, Miss Sommers. What exactly are you doing?"
"There were some, um, irregularities with the synthetic skin, Sir," Will said. "Nothing serious."
"I wanted to see what my new arm really looked like, that's all," Jaime said. "Thought it might help me deal with losing my real one."
"Hmm," Bledsoe hummed. "Well, did it help?"
"Yeah, it did."
Bledsoe looks a little surprised. "That's good. Anthros, you look tired. Get yourself some coffee. Miss Sommers and I have something to discuss."
"Yessir," Will said, then hurried past Bledsoe and out of the lab. The airlock cycled behind him, and Bledsoe turned to Jaime.
"I've given the situation with the control systems some thought."
"You mean your mind control devices," Jaime said. "That also, surprise!, almost killed me. Are we ready to tear it out now?"
"I think there's an alternative solution we should consider."
"Listen, Bledsoe, this isn't hard. I don't want to die. This crap is trying to kill me. It's out. I thought I was clear about that!"
"It's not that simple," Bledsoe said. "The control systems are tied into the kinetic loop that handles your programmed reflexes and lets you move your limbs without hurting yourself."
"Then get Ambrose to reprogram it. I'll be stuck in a wheelchair for a few days, so what?"
"There is another option," Bledsoe said. "We turn over complete control of the mental control systems to you. You choose when to switch them on."
"No," Jaime said. "No, I want -"
"I know what you want, Miss Sommers," Bledsoe said. "We can't take them out, and I'm sorry about that, but that's how it is. Not all of the systems are as -"
"Lethal?"
"- overt as the panic control. Most of them are very subtle, and can help you. They are tools. You've spent two days in my world and you know that it's dangerous, Miss Sommers. For you, and for the people you love. You can't afford to just toss something that might be useful in the trash."
Jaime looked at Bledsoe, then back at her arm, thinking over what he just said.
"No," she said. "Some tools aren't worth it. You can go ahead with giving me control, but I won't use them. Same thing."
Bledsoe nodded slightly. "Thank you for considering it, Miss Sommers. I've also looked into your headaches."
"What about them?"
"I've decided to give you two weeks off," Bledsoe said. "You're obviously having problems adjusting to the bionics. Your medical sensors show that you're still suffering from internal trauma from the accident, especially brain swelling - which is probably what's causing the headaches. Take the time and relax, Miss Sommers."
"Uh, okay, sure," Jaime said. "Thank you...Jonas."
Bledsoe smiled. "You're welcome. And don't call me that in front of anyone else, understood? It's destructive to morale."
"And your image amongst the workers," Jaime said, and stretched. "It'll be nice to have the time off. Take care of myself, and Becca."
"About that, Miss Sommers. Maybe you should reconsider her living with you," he said. "In the long run, it'll become harder to justify your absences and your actions. Terrorists don't work 9 to 5, and neither do we. I'm also concerned over her safety in a public school. We'll do our best to provide security, of course, but with the daily commute and her afternoon activities, it's a lot of ground to cover."
"What are you talking about?"
"A boarding school," Bledsoe said. "Find a good college prep that suits her, we'll take care of the admission and the tuition. Your sister would be much easier to protect if she's not in the line of fire."
"No," Jaime said. "That's not an option. Becca stays with me."
"The situation can only become more dangerous from here, Miss Sommers."
"I don't care," Jaime said, shaking her head. "I'm not sending Becca off to some prep school. She stays here, with me. I can protect her." Jaime stood up from the table and started to advance on Bledsoe. "And if you ask me to choose between your mysterious little missions and my little sister, unless they're about to blow up the Transamerica Building, you can get Sage and the other guys to handle it. I will not let you come between me and her, do you understand me?"
"Don't mistake my patience for weakness," Bledsoe said flatly. "If you tell me you can take care of the situation, I'll let you do your best. But I will stay on top of this, and if it turns out that you can't handle this, we're going to have to find a workable solution before someone targets her. Are we on the same page now?"
Jaime opened her mouth to reply, but the implications of Bledsoe's words were too strong to find words against. Stunned, she fell back and sat on the gurney.
"I hope you understand my point here, Miss Sommers," Bledsoe said. "I don't want anything to happen to your sister. And you need to think about how to best protect her."
Jaime didn't reply; Bledsoe sighed slowly, then turned and left the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts. After a moment, Jaime took a deep breath.
"I can protect her," Jaime said to herself. "I will protect her."
---
Math class passed without incident; the windup to class had given Becca the opportunity to go over Kate's solution in detail, equipping her with the ability to speak about the problem, if necessary. However, other people were called upon, laziness was exposed with no catastrophic consequences for the so afflicted, and by the end of the class Becca wasn't so sure whether having skipped this piece of homework was really worth all the anxiety of the morning.
"I told you I had it right," Kate said, and smiled. Becca smiled back, sincerely.
That left the usual suspects - biology, history, photography, none of which held Becca's interest that day - until she finally consciously realized that she was standing in line for lunch and had had half of the day float past her.
On the heels of that realization, she ordered the salad with her milkshake: nutritionally speaking, an empty gesture, but Becca wasn't too worried about her weight. Kate, right in line behind her, also went for the salad, but her choice of beverage was a bottle of mineral water. That was about par for the course, Becca thought, and sought out a table for the two of them in the corner of the hall that was near the large panorama windows. The somewhat cramped area's appeal was almost exclusively in its clear lines of sight to pretty much the entirety of the hall - and, well, the very occasional rays of sunshine making it past the thick crowns of the trees outside.
Kate sat down next to Becca and bumped her with her shoulder to get her attention. "So, tell me what the project is," she said.
Becca grinned. "It wouldn't be super-double-secret if I told you, right?"
"Come on," Kate said. "You're gonna tell me eventually, so you might as well get it over with now."
Becca looked around, as if to make sure that nobody was watching or listening, then leaned over to Kate and whispered. "I'm building a robot."
"Ooh, like one of those swashbot things? I thought how they wobbled around was so cute."
"No, not like that," Becca said, "like something that can actually navigate by itself and take photos, and - uh, well, whatever else I can swing. I mean, I don't even have all the parts for the control system yet."
Kate's eyes went wide. "Nice. How are you going to make it do that? That's, like, really advanced control and automation."
"Yeah, no kidding," Becca said. "I've got this multi-chip ARM simulator and I think I have the architecture figured out, most of it anyway, but, uh, it doesn't scale to what I want to do. Keeps crashing on me, too much stuff going on for the VM to run properly on my netbook, and there's only so much component testing I can do with that before I need some actual metal to try it out on."
"Well, that's what you get for downloading some hacked tool you found on Pirate Bay," Kate said, mouth full of salad.
"Try it again without the mouthful of food," Becca said.
Kate swallowed the half-chewed mass of veggies in one enormous gulp. "Whatever cheap VM knockoff you had probably couldn't run a vacuum cleaner."
Becca nodded her understanding. "Actually, I got it from a guy at CalSci's robotics lab," she said sheepishly. "Still had to get a crack, though. Single-user license costs more than a freaking car."
"You're breaking CalSci's simulators?" Kate said. "Uhh, wow."
"Yeah, not really, but - well, kinda, I guess it's more a hardware limitation than software, but yeah." Becca replied. "Thanks for the 'Wow', anyway."
"Yeah, sure, genius-girl," Kate said, and took another bite of her salad, taking care to swallow it first so her lips could be read. "So, how's that big brain of yours doing on that English report?"
"I never should've told Jaime about it," Becca said. "I've got like three biographies on Wilde in my room right now. I told her, it's just an essay, not even the whole grade, but you let her get started and two hours later, she'll have you convinced 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is the best and deepest work of English fiction in, like, ever, except all the other books that take five hours to explain."
"Sounds like someone I know," Kate said, smiling.
"Hey!" Becca said.
"Just remember, this isn't the math homework, you have to get it done the night before." Kate said. "Turnitin is a harsh mistress."
"I know," Becca said. "I've been so stuffed with everything you could possibly want to know about the book, I'm more worried about accidentally just copying down something I've read -" Becca stopped mid-sentence, and stared out across the table, struck with an idea.
"Uh, Becca?"
"Holy crap," Becca said. "That might actually work."
Kate had seen that look on Becca's face before. It usually preceded her running off very quickly. "You're just gonna leave now, aren't you," she said. Becca didn't see her speak, so Kate waved her hand in front of her friend's face and repeated herself when she got Becca's attention again. "You're gonna leave now, right?"
"Gotta save the world, see ya later," Becca said, grabbed her bag and climbed out from behind the table, rushing off for the next door.
"Wait, your lunch!" Kate shouted after her. But Becca wasn't looking at her, and that meant her message didn't stand a chance of delivery. After a second of frozen posture, Kate sat back down. "Save it for physics, Katie," Kate mumbled to herself. "No problem."
---
Jonas Bledsoe found the door of his office open and Antonio Pope already inside, still wearing his Army dress uniform. Bledsoe nodded to the soldier and walked behind his desk to fix himself a drink.
"I watched it," Pope said. "Little lax, don't you think, Mr. Bledsoe?"
"She's a conscript, Pope," Bledsoe replied. "You have to make allowances for that. How'd it go with Colonel McCarthy?"
"He's got files he shouldn't have and he's cheating on his wife."
"Is he -"
"Hard to say. My gut says no."
"Good for him," Bledsoe said, taking a swig of clear liquor. The taste lingered on his tongue with a vague burning sensation following it, and he nodded approvingly. "Mmh. Still chasing that right bottle of rouo de. Doesn't taste quite right if it hasn't sat in grass. You want some?"
"No, thank you," Pope said.
"Suit yourself," Bledsoe said. "So, files he shouldn't have. Anything interesting there?"
"Actually, yes. I found another autopsy report for Corvus. Looked off to me, so on the flight back I checked the one we got. Ours has all five GSWs, the one in McCarthy's files only has four and they're not in the same places. References to bionics were redacted, of course, but they looked to match the text in ours."
"Interesting. And the rest is the same?"
"No mention of ID tests, either - dental, prints, DNA, nothing."
"Alright," Bledsoe said. "Eyes on McCarthy, then. Might not be our man, but someone around him could be. And we need copies of everyone's Corvus autopsy. If there's more than one version, we could track tampering by who has what and checking it against the official distribution list."
"That'll put everyone on edge, though," Pope replied. "You're asking the liar for proof he's lying - they'll just give you the 'right' version of the report."
"It's a long shot," Bledsoe admitted. "But there's always snitches and screw-ups, Pope. You squeeze hard and long enough, sooner or later something's gotta give. And then we'll have our leak."
---
All things considered, bumming a ride home from Will was better than getting one from Bledsoe. It was 2 PM by the time the pair reentered San Francisco, and dinner plans were made - a safe topic of conversation, though not particularly time-filling. Her conversation with Bledsoe was still rolling around in her head, and Jaime hadn't yet come up with a better way to start a dialogue when Will's car rolled up on her home.
"See you, Jaime," Will said. He'd gotten fairly good at brave faces in a short time.
"Love you," Jaime replied. There was some magic to those words: it turned Will's smile honest and lightened Jaime's expression, too. She kissed him through the lowered window of his car, a brief taste of his lips with the idling engine in her ear.
Will's car did the opposite of speeding away, while Jaime waved and smiled at him until he rounded the corner and took off. With him gone, Jaime's next thought went out to Becca; she pulled out her private cellphone, selected Becca from her (short) list of contacts and started typing out a short message.
'Picking you up'
'Really? Not 2 busy?' Becca's reply was quick, and Jaime could hear the tone in her voice even through the text.
'Sorry! ice cream?'
'Better than ice cream ( '
'Ice cream + shopping? :) '
'Whatever pick me up after class'
'Okay love you!'
'Yeah okay bye'
Jaime switched her phone back to standby and stashed it. Out of reflex, she reached for her wallet and checked it. There were about 37 dollars in cash in there, not exactly enough for a shopping spree, but then she pulled out the debit card Bledsoe had given her. She looked at it, and thought about what he had said earlier. Fuck you, Jonas Bledsoe, she thought, and pulled out her cell phone again.
'Lets drain that debit card'
'Really?'
'Really'
For a few seconds, there was silence in the ether. Then, Becca's reply came in.
'Hmm okay later'
Jaime thought about writing another reply, but she knew when to push Becca to open up, and when to just leave her alone, and right then, the best thing she could do was to just wait and try to talk to her when she picked her up. With that in mind, she climbed into her car, started the engine and practiced her speech to Becca.
"Hey," Jaime said to herself. "I'm sorry for running out on you yesterday, and the day before. I left you...I left you..." She hit the steering wheel. "Damn."
---
Jaime pulled up in front of Becca's high school. Becca was sitting at her usual spot by the school's sign, looking at the ground in front of her, resolutely ignoring anything other than her phone. Jaime pulled her car to a stop in front of her at the curb and waited for a moment. Becca still didn't look up, being that she was more focused on reading her cell phone's screen than looking for Jaime. Jaime grabbed her own phone and texted Becca again.
'Right in front of you lets go'
'I know still mad'
'Then come in lets talk'
Jaime looked up at Becca. When Becca received the text message, she sighed, and looked up at Jaime, who smiled at her little sister. Becca simply shook her head and got in the car.
"So..." Jaime asked.
Becca looked at Jaime in the rear view mirror. "Let's just go," she said.
"I'm really sorry, Becca, about leaving you last night, and the night before."
Becca turned and looked out of the window, staring at the trees in front of the school. "Becca..." Jaime mumbled helplessly. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel, and after a quick check that all windows were closed, Jaime screamed as loud as she could. A few kids walking past the car looked at her, but she ignored them. After a second to catch her breath and regain her composure, she put her hand on Becca's shoulder.
"I'm not talking to you," Becca said. She threw a slight glance behind her, and when she caught a glimpse of her big sister's face, eyes red and jaw clenched in pain, her expression softened.
"Jaime?" Becca asked quietly. "What's - I, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."
Jaime managed a smile, and Becca tried to join in. Jaime couldn't hold herself back any longer, and wrapped her arms around her little sister. The two hug for a moment, then Jaime pulls back. "It's okay. So, you want to talk?"
"Not right now," Becca says. "I - I'm not ready yet."
"Okay," Jaime said. "So...ice cream?"
Becca pauses. "I don't -"
"You don't actually get a choice here," Jaime said with a brief grin, "because I'm getting some. And after that, how do you feel about getting back at my new boss and spending a lot of his money?"
"What is 'a lot'?" Becca asked. "How much spendage are we talking here?"
"Well, what do you want to buy?" Jaime asked. "Besides a car," she quickly added.
"I have a list," Becca said, pulled out a notebook and handed it to Jaime.
"You've been waiting for this," Jaime said, skimming the list. "Does this computer really need four of these Tesla things? What's this for, anyway?"
"It's so I can run simulations on the code and motion of the robot."
"Oh, the robot," Jaime mumbled.
"It doesn't really have to have four of them, but..." Becca said, smiling.
"Two, Becca."
"Three?"
"No, two. We can get more if you need them."
Becca managed to look disappointed for about a second before she lunged across the car and hugged Jaime. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Jaime returned the hug. When Becca let go, she smiled.
"Also, those two crazy nights?" Jaime said. "I got the next two weeks off. We can do whatever you want."
"I've always wanted an evil lab assistant," Becca said, smile growing on her face.
"You got it," Jaime said. "Let's go!"
----
Sara Corvus was on the hunt again.
After a whole night of trying to get anything useful out of the strange surveillance device she'd extracted from beneath Jaime's car, Corvus was about ready for something basic again. Without the tracker, following Jaime Sommers was a matter of driving behind her car at a distance, keeping her moves subtle and her pursuit unobtrusive. A nice change of pace, but too mindless to keep Corvus's thoughts at bay.
Her thoughts circled around the surveillance device like planets around a star, inevitably drawn closer by the weight of the idea. It wasn't one of hers, it wasn't Berkut, in fact it didn't match any bug Corvus had ever seen in use. Whoever had gotten it into position had done so without being noticed by Jaime, Berkut's men or even Corvus's own accomplices, and that spoke to a significant amount of skill.
Another side. As if the game wasn't already complicated enough.
You're in a war you didn't ask for, Sommers. Everybody wants a piece of you, but you can't spare any more, can you? Can you fight the whole world?
Corvus followed Jaime's car to a school, pulling in to park a few seconds after Jaime executed the same maneuver a hundred feet ahead. The buzz from other students being picked up by their parents masked Corvus's presence well. Just another car, sitting there, waiting. Eventually, Jaime pulled out of the parking spot and drove away. Corvus followed. The viewing angle hadn't been good enough to see who Jaime had picked up, so Corvus wondered about that through the next three turns. A kid? Corvus dismissed the thought; she didn't figure Jaime for the type to already have a high school-age kid. A younger sibling, maybe. That sounded plausible enough.
You can't tell anyone, Sommers. Only you get to see the monster in the mirror. Stick to the routine. Wear the old skin. Hide what they made you into.
Half an hour later, Corvus had her theory confirmed. Jaime's SUV pulled into the parking lot of a Fry's Electronics box-store. Corvus's face showed a bemused smirk as her car rolled past, slow enough to give her a look at Jaime. A young girl - 15? 16? - climbed out of the passenger's side of Jaime's car. Corvus's eyes took a dozen high-resolution pictures of her, squirreling them away for later analysis. Corvus found an empty spot some distance away, parked her car and waited.
Throughout the next few minutes, Corvus occasionally looked around her, trying to spot the Berkut vehicle tailing Jaime's car, but finally gave up and concluded there was none. That made her current job easier but her overall mission harder: if the surveillance on Jaime was through her implants, getting her secluded and away from Jonas Bledsoe's watchful eyes would be much harder. Corvus's thoughts leaped at that: what kind of signal did they use? Where and how could it be neutralized? There had to be a way, somehow.
You're on a leash, like a dog. They take you apart and turn you into a doll, a fake plastic monster. You ever look behind you and just want to run, Sommers? I'd run if I were you. Run faster than they can follow you. It's the only way you'll ever get to live.
Jaime and her - sister? - took a long time to shop, and for a while Corvus considered that they'd noticed her and called reinforcements on her, taking shelter inside. The feeling only vanished when they walked back out of the store with a full shopping cart. Corvus reached for a pair of binoculars to augment the natural zoom of her bionic eyes; with the additional magnification, she could read some of the labels poking out of the large plastic bags. Ethereal boxes popped into her vision as her system deciphered the barcodes, giving her a glimpse of the items bought.
Batteries, sensors and - a 5000 dollar GPGPU system?
Corvus didn't know what exactly that was, but she surmised that it wasn't exactly a video game accessory. She resolved to find out more about Jaime's companion; this was proving to be a little more interesting than she'd thought. With a swipe of her hand, she detached a small flap of smartskin behind her ear. Spanning a cable from the plug installed there to her cellphone was a well-practiced, if still tiresome move. With a few key taps, she pulled one of the pictures of the teenager out of her internal storage and sent it to Nicholas, her closest ally. After the phone beeped out the completion of that task, she followed it up with a text message.
'Associate sommers need id'
---
Staggering through the front door, Becca dropped the last two bags of clothing in the sizable pile of loot taking up half of the living room floor, and Jaime followed shortly behind, carrying the cardboard box containing Becca's shiny new supercomputer. The box was placed carefully next to the kitchen counter, and Jaime took a seat on the sofa. Becca collapsed on top of her big sister, laying across her lap.
"That was so much fun," Becca said, and propped herself up so she could see Jaime's face.
"Oof, my legs," Jaime protested. "I think you broke them."
"Then I guess you'll just have to sit here," Becca said, "because I'm way too tired to move."
"Fine," Jaime said, "it's not like I can get up, anyway. That thing really weighs, like, five grand."
"Why do you think I volunteered to take the last of your clothes in?" Becca asked, grinning mischievously.
"I bow before the brilliance of your scheme," Jaime said, and bows as much as her sister's body will let her. "So, what's the plan now? We have two weeks all to ourselves, all the time in the world to get in trouble with."
"I'm sure we'll think of something," Becca said, and rolled off Jaime's legs onto the floor. She sat up, her back against the table. "What about after that, though?"
Jaime's expression grew slightly more serious. "I'm back on call. When the vacation is over, you go back to work." She tried to crack a grin. "That's how adult life works."
"Yeah, but...what about breakfast?" Becca asked, drawing a circle in the carpet. "What if you're not there in the mornings ever again?"
"I will be there almost every morning, I promise. And no more running out in the middle of the night without telling you. It was just two days, Becca."
Becca stood up. "Your first two days with this new job," she shoots back. "You're just going to ditch me more and more, and then I'll never see you again, you're just going to leave me for this stupid job!"
"No!" Jaime insisted. "Becca, I'm not going to leave you behind, ever. I would never do that."
"Oh, yeah? You left me at school, you left in the middle of the night, you weren't there in the morning, ever since you got this job, all you've been doing is leaving me behind!"
"I - I didn't want to, but I didn't have a choice!" Jaime said, feeling her chest tighten.
"Of course you did!" Becca shouted, tears running down her cheeks. "We were doing fine before, just fine, and now you only see me when you sneak out in the middle of the night!"
Jaime's vision blurred with tears of her own. "Becca, I - I -"
"What's this Bledsoe person have you do that's so important, anyway?" Becca yelled, and wiped her eyes.
"I...I can't tell you," Jaime said. "It's really important, and that's all I can say."
Becca froze, her mouth hanging open from shock. "I can't believe this," she said, turning around. "I can't believe you would lie to me! Why would you lie to me like that! Just tell me, tell me what's worth abandoning me for!" She turned back around, and saw Jaime holding her face in her hands. "Huh?"
Jaime drew her hands off her face and looked up at Becca, unable to speak. She didn't need to. Becca could read every word of it off her face. Her face was soaked with tears, one eye bloodshot from crying, and her lips trembled as her big sister tried to hold herself together. "I...I can't..." she said, and Becca could see every bit of pain saying that sentence caused her. The helplessness. The desperation.
But above everything else Becca saw, there was the fear. Raw, naked, complete terror. In that moment, Becca knew that whatever this new job was, it scared the living daylights out of Jaime.
"Just...go," Jaime whimpered. "Go away. Get away from me."
Anyone else and Becca would have turned away and done just that. She was looking at a trainwreck of her own making, and the most basic instinct was to gain distance, to get away, give her what she wanted and hope this would all blow over. Go somewhere safe, breath it out, calm down.
Anyone else. But not her sister.
Becca knelt down in front of Jaime. "No," she said, fighting her throat for every word. "It's okay. I trust you, sis. I believe you. It's gonna be okay."
"Becca -" Jaime choked out.
"I'm sorry," Becca said, and embraced her. "It's gonna be okay, I promise."
Jaime nodded. "It's gonna be okay," she sniffled.
As they held each other, the fresh memory of Jaime's terrified face burned itself into Becca's thoughts.
What is it, Jaime? Becca thought. What's going on? You can't tell me, but I can find out. I have to find out.
---
The most tiring part of any storm was always the cleanup afterwards, the period where you stood before a mountain of rubble already exhausted from the fight. Slowly, over the next few hours, Becca and Jaime climbed out of the hole, exchanging more apologies and cheering each other up, squirreling away their respective purchases in their rooms and preparing for dinner. When Will finally arrived, Becca was too tired to clash with him, never mind upsetting her big sister again; she ate and nodded politely to a conversation free of substantial content. After dinner, Becca politely excused herself. Jaime was clearly preoccupied with seeking solace from Will, and Becca swallowed the small feeling in her throat, knowing that she would have to get used to not having Jaime's affection all to herself.
It was an upsetting experience in all, and so she walked straight past the shiny new hardware. Her utopical wish list, now essentially fulfilled, seemed like a mere consolation price. What kept her together was the nastier part of her brain, negative emotions honing in on a previous target: Jonas Bledsoe. After all, the man was responsible for the troubles with her sister, right? It wouldn't do to just give up after a single night. Not when she still had a few aces up her sleeve.
What made the visit to Turnitin embarrassing was that Becca had already bookmarked it for the English class assignments. She logged in, browsed her submissions for an open assignment, and opened it.
Finding a copy of the Bledsoe interview in her browser history was easy. Pasting it into the submission form at the Turnitin website was easy. Waiting for the website to trawl its database was hard. Fortunately, the server load was light, and within a few minutes, the results came back in.
'Her' text lit up like a Christmas tree.
Becca's reflex reaction was to shout and pump her fist, pat herself on the back for cracking another tough nut. But after a few moments of thought, the urge disappeared rapidly. What had she just proved? She thought of Jaime's face. She thought of what it would take to seed fake articles all over the net. The thought wasn't comforting. All she had was a collection of magazine articles, a mere annoyance against someone with enough connections to create an entirely fake life for this 'Jonas Bledsoe'.
First things first: Becca had to clean up after herself. She removed the interview text from her submissions and replaced it with her proper essay again; after seeing it safely submitted to regain its real rating, Becca closed the browser tab, which left her with the interview - and a photo of Jonas Bledsoe donning a slight smile for the camera.
"Who are you?" Becca asked.