Chapter 12 Mattie
MATTIE
Mattie had learned a few things about negotiations over the years. Mostly from her grandmother.
The first was that timing mattered more than content. Even the best argument in the world would fail if delivered at the wrong moment. At best, it would get ignored in favor of more pressing issues, and at worst, it would be dismissed out of hand.
The second was that asking for permission was a surefire way to get a refusal. It was giving someone else the power to say no, and the result was most often a denial.
The third thing she had learned, and this was probably the most important one, was that the good intentions of others were sometimes an obstacle, especially when they didn't agree with her. It was better to act first and apologize later.
Which was why she hadn't told Dimitri or Petrov what she was planning to do when Dave arrived for his shots.
She sat in her chair by the window, her injured hand elevated on a folded lab coat, her book opened on the table, but she didn't have the patience to read.
Instead, she watched the men work. Dimitri was pipetting something into a row of vials, and Petrov was at the far bench, running calibrations on equipment that Mattie couldn't even pretend to understand.
The outline of what she wanted to say to Dave had been forming in her mind since yesterday, sharpening through the night while Dimitri slept beside her, and she stared at the ceiling and turned the words over in her head.
She knew what Dimitri would say if she told him.
He would say she was dreaming, that it wasn't doable, they hadn't even agreed on the core terms of Dave's proposal yet, and adding conditions would complicate an already difficult situation.
He would say that it was counterproductive, and he would probably be right.
But he would also be wrong because the longer they waited to introduce the dormant women into the conversation, the harder it would be to make them a condition or even a suggestion. Things like that had to be established early to give everyone time to brainstorm the idea.
It was possible that in the end, everyone would conclude that it was overreaching, and she would have to give up on saving the Dormants and their children, but she felt compelled to try.
Funny to use that word in the context of a multi-body being that could twist minds into obeying his wishes. This was a different kind of compulsion, though. It hadn't arisen from one entity forcing its will on another, but rather from a moral conviction.
With a sigh, Mattie turned a page in her book and tried to read.
At two in the afternoon, the intercom sounded with Number One's voice, and as Petrov buzzed him in, Number Four opened the door, and all eight of Dave filed into the lab.
Eight bodies, eight faces, all different in the specifics of bone structure and coloring but unified by an expression so identical that it erased whatever individuality their features might have otherwise conveyed.
She should ask them for their real names instead of using numbers to identify them.
Surely they still remembered the names they had been given by their mothers, but if they didn't like them, or if the names came with a negative connotation, they could assume new ones as they had done for their collective.
Perhaps they could all start with the letter D?
Dave and Dimitri started with a D, so maybe it was a good sign. Or a bad one, foreshadowing the pending mind merge.
Mattie shivered at the thought.
Thinking about liberating the Dormants had taken her mind off the more pressing issue of what was required in exchange for Dave's help.
After the usual greetings, the Eight took their seats along the wall, settling onto the line of plastic chairs in the order they always used. Number One at the far left, the rest cascading down by whatever internal numbering system governed Dave's sense of self.
The routine never changed. Dave came in, sat down, received their injections, and left. The shots took about fifteen minutes, with each body receiving its own specifically calibrated dose.
Dimitri crossed the lab to the refrigeration unit where the enhancement drugs were stored, pulled out the vials, and started preparing Number One for his injection.
Mattie watched him work, waiting for the right moment to say what she'd planned, with her heart beating like a locomotive in her chest.
Dimitri must have heard it because he cast her a curious glance and mouthed, are you okay?
Forcing a smile, she nodded.
She waited until Dimitri was on Number Three and his back was turned to her. Pushing away from the table, she rolled her stool across the floor toward where the Eight were sitting.
The wheels squeaked on the concrete, and Dimitri's head twitched at the sound, but he didn't turn around because he was busy injecting and had to keep his eyes on what he was doing.
Petrov glanced up from his notepad, registered that she was moving, but thought nothing of it and went back to his notes.
She positioned herself close to Number One, with whom she was the most comfortable. Not that she was at ease around him, far from it, but at least he answered when talked to. The others just stared and let him do all the talking.
"In case you were wondering, we're still thinking about your proposal," she said.
Her bandaged hand rested in her lap. Her good hand gripped the edge of the stool's seat.
Eight pairs of eyes turned to her simultaneously. The effect, even after days of exposure, was still unsettling.
Number One's head tilted a fraction. "We assumed as much. It is not an easy decision."
"It is not. And while Dimitri and Petrov work through the technical questions of how the merge could work and whether it could be reversed, as well as the cognitive risks, I have a condition of my own.
More of a proposal, really. I think you will agree with me that it is the right thing to do, or at least to try. "
She was hedging too much, but now that she was actually facing the Eight, her courage faltered, and she had become suddenly aware of how outrageous her demand was. That was why she'd tried to frame it as a suggestion, a request, something that everyone could agree on.
Dimitri's shoulders stiffened, and he paused with the syringe in hand.
"What is your condition?" Number One asked, and she couldn't tell from his tone whether he was curious or disapproving.
"I couldn't stop thinking of the dormant women you told Dimitri about." She shook her head. "Their situation is just awful. It's even worse than that of the trafficked women in the brothel. We have to help them escape."
The silence that followed was the kind that had texture. It was dense, layered, and full of the micro-adjustments happening behind eight identical expressions as a collective consciousness processed a request that it had not anticipated.
"Mattie," Dimitri's voice came from behind her, sharp and reproachful. "We talked about this."
She lifted her good hand to stop him from continuing. "Let me finish."
She looked at Number One, but she spoke to all of them. "Your mothers are in there. The women who gave birth to the boys who became you."
Nothing moved. Eight faces watched her with the same flat, impassive expression, but Mattie felt rather than saw a collective shifting in their demeanor. It was like a flicker of a candle flame caught in a draft.
"They did not love us," Number One said.
"I don't think that's true." Mattie looked Number One in the eyes but then shifted her gaze to the others.
"For thirteen years, they held you and fed you and watched you grow, but they knew you would be taken away from them, so they tried really hard not to get attached because it just hurt too much.
And then you were taken from them, and they didn't know what happened to you after that.
They didn't know whether you were even alive, let alone that you became Dave.
" She gestured at the row of bodies with her good hand.
"You might even have younger brothers that you don't know about among the other soldiers or sisters who are trapped in the enclosure with your mothers. "
"We are aware of the situation regarding our biological mothers and siblings we know about and those we don’t," Number One said.
His voice had lacked emotional tonality as usual, but the words he'd chosen told Mattie enough. The clinical distance of the term biological was a shield. Using a term like that created a separation between them and any kind of emotion that the simpler word Mother might evoke.
"Given how young you all are, your mothers could be in their early forties or even late thirties.
They could still live full lives as free women.
" She leaned forward. "Don't you want to meet them?
You could establish new relationships with them, real ones, the kind that were not possible when you were growing up.
The kind that was stolen from you when you were thirteen. "
"Mattie, stop." Dimitri abandoned Number Five and walked over to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Your heart is in the right place, but this is beyond what Dave can do, even if we accept their proposal. What you suggest would require an act of God."
Unintentionally, he'd given her just the ammunition she needed.
"The Eight have transcended. The new entity named Dave is far more than the sum of its individual components. If anyone can do this, it's Dave."
"We've talked about this, Mattie." Dimitri sounded exasperated. "You're talking about hundreds of women, possibly thousands, guarded by an immortal army. Even Dave can't neutralize the entire Brotherhood while simultaneously managing an escape on that scale."
As Dimitri ran his free hand through his hair, she could feel the frustration radiating off him, the tightly controlled impulse to just pick her up and carry her back to her usual chair by the window. He didn't, because he knew better, but the impulse was there.