Chapter 38
“Hah. I’m quite sure, actually.”
My mind races. “Landry.”
“Yes.”
“The man I was protecting in Oceanus. My friend.”
“Yes.”
“He was your son.”
Briefly, something very sad in her eyes. “Yes, dear.”
I take a deep breath. Give it a few moments for the idea to settle in amidst the incessant pulse of the warning lights. “How old were you when you had him?”
She snorts a short laugh, and says nothing.
I shake my head dazedly, then rip off a clean bit of Smug Exec’s suit and start wiping down. A lot of things are suddenly clearer. Damn. “So you’re trying to find out what really happened at Oceanus, too.”
“Trying to confirm a suspicion, actually. A strong one.” Her humour fades to something grim, an aspect I never saw in her Dupe.
“I hadn’t spoken to Landry in more than ten years—no contact, no tokens—he didn’t know I was alive, and I didn’t think anyone knew he had any connection to me.
But I was still keeping an eye on his life.
And when I realised someone was trying to kill him, I panicked.
I set up a series of proxies, and through them, hired the best protection money could offer. ”
“Wait. What?” I’m still reeling from the idea that she and Landry were even tangentially related, and this nearly breaks my brain. “Ugh. So… have I ever done any jobs where you didn’t secretly hire me?”
She chuckles, though it’s clearly tempered by the memory she’s dredging up.
“For the couple of years before that, the Keres had been pushing to get me to adapt my research to cloning. But I’d been coming up with excuses.
I’d already given them revs, and then flagged your original’s unique compatibility.
Didn’t feel like a good idea to hand them anything more. ”
She exhales. Suddenly, improbably, looking even older than usual.
“After… after the bomb, the Keres weren’t sure you’d survive, so they begged me to accelerate things.
Said they’d get me anything I needed. And then I found out, coincidentally, that Oceanus’s DeGov had recently taken DNA and brain scans of everyone in your building. ” She falls silent.
“You thought you could bring Landry back.” A heartbeat where I feel a surging hope, and then crushing disappointment the next when I see her expression.
“I told the Keres that if they got the DeGov data for me, I could make it happen.” She hangs her head. “And when they said they’d only risk it if I could prove it would work first, I didn’t think there was much of a choice.”
I finish cleaning myself of the worst of the blood, and start up the stairs toward the terminal. Ah, hell. “So now you think the Keres… what? Knew about Landry being your son all along? Set the whole thing up? Blew up a hundred thousand people to motivate you?”
“No idea if they set it up or found out about the link after I hired you, but I think they blew up a hundred thousand people to keep their shareholders happy. And that you and Landry just helped choose which hundred thousand it was going to happen to.”
I pause, just short of the terminal. Frown up at the screen questioningly.
“Do you remember how there was a swing in public opinion in Oceanus, a few months after that controversial Ten-O-Ten expansion? A lot of concern, momentum to try and rescind the commercial aspects?” She sighs as I nod slowly.
“All of that went away after the bombing. The amendment allowed pop vote to reclassify Talios agents into the same category as lifers. The Keres suddenly were not only popular, they had more crowdfunded contracts than they could handle for almost the entire year after. The whole thing meant that they were able to push through a broader Ten-O-Ten in most of the other megacities, too. It took them from being financially stagnant, maybe even a little precariously placed, to one of the biggest corps on the planet.”
She’s right; some of my first contracts back were Talios agents. Still. “You’re guessing.”
“They found out the questions I was asking, Azure, and then tried pretty hard to kill me. Bit of an overreaction to a bad guess. I think four years ago they finally realised I was deliberately holding back the cloning research, and so getting you and Landry in the same operation was a… convenience. A bonus.” A flash of heat and bitterness finally breaks through, at that last part.
She takes a breath. Gives me a wry smile, and composes herself.
“But if you want actual proof, it’ll be in that room, so…
oh!” She disappears from the screen for a moment as she bends down. “Huh. What do you know.”
“What?”
She holds up a small box to the cam. “There was a modulator in here after all.”
I glower at her, then sigh and move over to the terminal. Tap on. It’s not even locked. “What am I looking for?” I flick to the terminal file system. It seems… sparse.
“Nothing in there, dear.” I look up at the screen with impatient expectancy. “I need that man’s head.”
“Sorry?”
“The one you killed. The data storage in there is biological. Part DNA-encoded and part memory based. The Keres couldn’t risk anything this sensitive being accessible by DeGov, even airgapped.
” She’s vaguely apologetic. “Just cut it off. You should be able to find a portable cooler in the cafeteria downstairs. You get it to me, I’ll decode it, and we go from there. ”
I stare at her for a moment longer, then sigh again. “Could’ve mentioned this before I got cleaned up,” I mutter, traipsing petulantly back down the stairs. “What if I’d crushed his head in by accident?”
“Important stuff is in the DNA. Brain’s just a bonus.”
“Great.” The snapped-off Argos claw is long and sharp, and the only viable head-severing implement in the room. I retrieve it, and get to work.
“What happened to the original version of me?” I ask while I saw.
“I don’t know; I only got access to your DNA and brain scan after the bombing. The answer’s probably in that head somewhere too,” she adds.
“So are there more of… me, I suppose… out there?”
“Other scions? Yes,” she admits, as I pause and look up.
“But no more of you. I chose you for all this because you’re not like them.
Why do you think we only assigned the AI to you, and gave the others i-neurals?
You’re the one who needed the interaction, the sounding board, the spontaneity.
Your memories were the same as the others’, and we experimented with emotional balances for each of you, but you…
you always reacted like a person, Azure, not an advanced biomachine.
The other scions talked as though Oceanus mattered to them, but you showed physical reactions to remembering it.
And you were creative, too! You weren’t meant to feel guilt, or anxiety, or fear, or regret—none of you were—but the way you used humour to deflect suggested that they were all still in there, in some form.
You have potential, Azure. Depth. I always felt like there was real humanity hiding in there somewhere. ”
I give a final yank, and pull Smug Exec’s head from his body. “Wow. That’s flattering.” I stand, for the second time in two days holding a rather sad-looking severed head by its hair. “So how many others?”
“I don’t actually know how many scions were made active; they began shutting me out not long after the project finished. But there could be… a dozen of you?”
“A dozen,” I repeat flatly. “Of me.”
“Well, not of you. Like I said. More like Crimson.”
“Oh, much better.”
“No need to be snippy.” She’s frowning. “Look, I don’t know where they are or their stand-down codes or anything, but all the data is in that head you’re holding. And there’s going to be some sort of response coming soon, so…”
“Fine.” More information would be better, but she’s not wrong. “Alright. Cooler downstairs, then back to the volo. How do I find you?”
“This would be a friendly meeting, I assume, dear?”
I think about what she’s put me through, to this point. “I probably wouldn’t kill you.”
“Hm. Not quite as definitive as I’d like, but beggars can’t be choosers, and all that.” She shakes her head. “Speaking of which. You still remember my scion’s wallet details? You can send me my tokens back, and I’ll find you with a backtrace.” She tuts. “I really didn’t think of you as a thief.”
“Well I didn’t think you’d be needing it,” I point out irritably. “And it’s too late. I spent most of it.”
She’s smiling, but it sort of seems to stiffen into something horrified as she starts to realise I’m not joking. “Pardon?”
“I have a 28 percent stake in Atti. How do you think I got in here?”
“Your AI? Ugh.” She sounds a mixture of disappointed and disgusted.
“Honestly, Azure? I just assumed you’d punched your way in, like you always do.
” She sighs. “Well, I won’t tell you off for using some forethought for once.
I do have some backup funds, and I suppose I owe you a reward for helping me out.
Plus I imagine you’ll need a little spending money, once you’re out of here, to disappear for a while. ”
“Exactly.” I pretend not to care about the utterly ludicrous number of tokens still sitting in my account. “So. How do I contact you?”
She thinks for a long moment. “If you want to, transfer a single token into that wallet. I’ll do the rest.”
“If I want to?” She emphasised that part.
“My gift to you, Azure. Choice.” She smiles beatifically.
“You bring that head to me, and we’ll work together.
Partners. Equals. We’ll use what we know to force the Keres into doing what we want them to do—hang this over them, use them to track down your counterparts and get rid of them.
I never should have created them, and you…
you might never be safe until you’re the only one left. ”
“Wait. You want to blackmail the Keres?” I frown. “You won’t just give DeGov the evidence?”
“Oh, we could expose them. It would hurt them. A lot. They may, when all is said and done, never recover.” She scratches her nose. “But that will happen because you’re a scion. I give it about… an eighty percent chance that DeGov decides you’re not supposed to be alive, once it knows?”
“Ah.” She’s not wrong; DeGov is going to classify me as illegal property rather than a person. I was willing to surrender myself to holding for a while, if I had to, if it meant the Keres got what they deserved. I’m less willing to surrender myself to a plasma incinerator. “That sucks.”
“Not your best case scenario,” she agrees. “And I still want some things from the Keres, too. So I think this all works out better for everyone if we look at it as leverage, not evidence.”
“Alright. Sure. That’s if I bring you this guy’s head. But you said there was a choice.” I taste disbelief as the words leave my tongue. “So if I don’t?”
“Then assuming you still want to see the Keres gain some measure of punishment, just leave it with Richard.”
“Of course I do, but… the damned lion? You sure he won’t just eat it?”
“He only likes them fresh,” she says with a worrying lack of irony.
“He’ll keep it safe until I can retrieve it, and instead of joining me, you can disappear.
The Keres will still think I’m dead—even if you get caught and tell them otherwise, they have no mechanism to reliably believe you now.
So, as long you get me that head, you have my word that I won’t make any more demands of you, Azure.
Won’t chase you. The Keres almost certainly will, but with your AI and whatever tokens you have left, I can’t imagine they’ll find you.
You can live out your days in peace. If that’s what you want. ”
“But… why? Why would you just let me do that?” I’m genuinely puzzled. Jasa—this slightly cooler, clone-sacrificing version of Jasa, especially—definitely does not seem the altruistic type.
“Because you were friends with Landry.” She pauses.
Leans forward. “And because, if I’m being honest, I have absolutely no idea what you’re going to do next.
Even my own scion reacted exactly as it was meant to, but you…
you’re unique. So I’m curious to see what you choose, Azure. I want to see what you really want.”
“I… wow. Okay.” I don’t really have much more to say, to that.
I try not to feel like the science experiment I apparently very much am, and move on, all too aware that it’s now been minutes since Smug Exec hit the alarm.
“Fine. But, how do you expect me to get out? Blending in may be a problem downstairs.” I heft the severed head, and gesture with my stump to my thoroughly blood-soaked attire.
“The AI really got you in?” I nod. “You know that’s like sending a soldier to step on an ant, right?”
“A very expensive soldier,” I correct her.
“Yes. Well. Given that our friend pressing the panic button hasn’t brought every defence in the building down on your head, I imagine you don’t need to worry.”
“Great. So you had no plan to get me out.”
“If you couldn’t arrange for your own survival, you wouldn’t have been much fun to work with.
But if you really have full control of ATRoPoS now, it will have dealt with any threats, anyway.
Trust me.” She smiles her infuriating smile.
“Good job in there today, dear. I’ll be watching that wallet. See you soon. Or not.”
The screen goes blank, and I’m left staring at NO Q-VID CONNECTED.
There’s only a steady drip-drip-drip near my feet as the head continues to swing gently from my grasp on its hair.
I sigh, then trudge to the elevator and hit the button to call it.
“Alright, Atti,” I mutter to myself. “Time to see if Jasa is right about you.”