Sweet Are The Uses Of Adversity
Starlight filtered through the canopy of trees. The tops swayed, but near the ground, the air currents remained stagnant. The scent of decay and young chlorophyll – so much more alive, now that Lusa’s nose had gotten used to the city.
Yellow eyes blinked open and Lusa stopped. They bobbed in the night, growing larger until she could make out Minuschok’s silhouette. She rolled up her sleeve and held her arm out.
Minuschok plodded forward rubbing her great mandible into her palm. Deep purrs resonated off birchwood.
“Bite.” She ordered. “Do it.” The cat took no notice.
“Oh my god, you’re dramatic. Has anyone ever told you you’re too much?” Hands stuffed in the pockets of an oversized parka, Mackenzie’s voice sent Minuschok running.
“What do you want?” Lusa grumbled. She rolled her sleeve back down, not that she could hide what she was trying to do.
“Your mom sent me.” Mackenzie found a log to sit on and crossed her legs like someone’s high femme girlfriend no-one had invited to their camping trip.
“I suppose in your head, you thought injuring yourself so the girl you’ve known for less than a week would still be able to choke you was romantic or something. ”
Lusa looked away, hoping to find Minuschok, but she’d gone. Putting it like that made her sound like an absolute fool.
“Yes, it was obvious what you were doing.” Mackenzie bobbed her foot. “You wouldn’t be able to play with those pretty knives you like so much.”
Holding her wrist so tightly she could feel her pulse, Lusa glared hotly. “Fuck you.”
“Changed your mind?” Mackenzie smiled wickedly. “Kerr will be disappointed. Did you know she still has the one that you threw at her? At one time, she was planning to kill you with it.” Mackenzie placed a hand over her heart. “How could I compete with a love story like that?”
Lusa curled her lip. “Are you always going to be like this?”
“Yes,” Mackenzie admitted without a hint of remorse. “You know this is the only real option for her. And here you are, throwing a tantrum because she won’t be as strong as she was and you won’t be able to offload responsibility onto her when you lose control. Have I got it right?”
“How do you…”
“I’ve been stuck people watching for centuries. Do you think you’re the first person with that kink?” Mackenzie waved dismissively.
“It’s not a kink. I don’t want to do it. I’m dangerous,” Lusa yelled. Hot tears cooled against her cheek in the night air.
“Call it whatever you want,” Mackenzie said with a stunning lack of empathy.
“I’m no therapist, but this place has fucked you up good.
” She picked a piece of rotting wood and threw it at Lusa.
“But come on, it’s not like implements of control don’t exist. Your moms own more than a few of them. It was a whole thing at one time.”
Reacting with disgust and horror, Lusa did not need to think of her moms in that way. “I’m not raiding my parents’… supplies.” It had been embarrassing enough when Pinga had found them. And knowing how gross Pinga was, she’d probably stolen a few.
“Fine, but surely you know there are other ways without her implant-enhanced hand around your neck?”
Lusa kicked at the dirt. Mackenzie was right. Talia was right. Kerr was right. But she wasn’t ready to deal with the shame of yet another loss of control. She scrambled for some way to deflect. “Why do you have to make her a boy?”
“Boy might not have been the most accurate.” Mackenzie admitted. “But it was more entertaining.” She stood and laced her fingers between Lusa’s. Lusa tried to pull her hand back. “Just friends, I promise,” Mackenzie said.
“This is your fault.” Lusa wanted to stab her, but she’d already lost control once today. “If you hadn’t kissed me, she wouldn’t have run off and Alana wouldn’t have shot her.”
“Frenemies, then.” Mackenzie tugged her toward the Medical Facility.
“Two reasons,” she added, continuing her previous thought.
“One, there are no more uninfected men and there never will be. Men, at least the way you think of them, were going to die out anyway. The non-recombinant part that makes it possible for the retrovirus to target also makes the rest of it susceptible to hyper-evolution.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lusa was sure she could try to understand, but she was feeling petulant.
“The chromosome is fragile. It’s held together with faerie dust and Christmas wishes. Whatever you want to call Kerr, it’s what men would have evolved into eventually. More or less.”
Lusa took a few steps. “I still don’t understand why you can’t just take a trader boy and rebuild him. You’d make the girls here a lot happier.” She sulked. “They’d at least leave me alone.”
“I had no eyes out here, but I find it hard to believe you weren’t a willing participant. Stop trying to be a martyr.” Mackenzie shoved her. “And the retrovirus is too persistent. You’re breathing it in right now.”
Lusa stared at the sky and held out her hand, as if she could catch it like a snowflake. “I still can’t believe you did this.”
“Me?” Mackenzie made a sound that was something between a raspberry and a cough.
“You’ve been killing yourselves for tens of thousands of years because some rich fuck had an idea.
You hunted animals to extinction for fashionable hats.
Drained lakes to pull oil out of the ground.
Burned it to power city-sized data centres.
This has been escalating since the first man planted the first seed in the ground.
And when shit got hard, he blamed everyone but himself. Men deserve to die out.”
“That’s literally genocide.” Lusa imagined the horror on Sparx’s face if he was here right now.
“Androcide,” Mackenzie corrected. “But there wasn’t a single woman on the boards of the tech companies or in the governments that allowed NovAITech to launch those balloons.
Men finally caused a problem that a woman can’t fix for them.
” Mackenzie did not seem remorseful at all.
Lusa doubted anything she said would change that.
But it didn’t change the situation. Her feelings about who caused it were irrelevant.
The trees thinning, greens and pinks danced in the ink blue sky overhead.
“I haven’t seen that for centuries,” Mackenzie said with a reverence Lusa hadn’t expected.
“All of my cameras were pointed down, as if the only thing of any importance was whatever you pissants occupied yourselves with.” Turning to Lusa, she took a long, slow breath.
“You can keep artificially making children every generation, or you let someone who’s been trying to fix her mistakes since they uploaded me help you.
Your other option is going extinct. No-one will be around to see this in another hundred years.
” Mackenzie swept her hand across the stars.
“But I rather liked your mom’s idea of having children out of spite. ”
“Out of what?” Lusa pulled her hand back, but Mackenzie held fast.
“A conversation I overheard years ago.” Mackenzie tugged to get Lusa moving again, but Lusa stood fast like a stubborn ox. “Ugh.” Mackenzie rolled her eyes dramatically. “If I promise to tweak her muscle fibres, will you stop being such a twit about this?”
Lusa wished she could slap her. She had no desire to discuss her sex life with Mackenzie.
Mackenzie didn’t give her the option. “You’re not superhuman, you just trained a lot. She doesn’t need that much strength to overcome you.”
Lusa planted her feet more firmly. She might not be that strong, but she was stronger than her.
“Yes, I thought of everything,” Mackenzie said drily. “You can thank me after.” She left toward the Medical Facility without Lusa.
“You’re a pervert.” Lusa yelled. She had no choice but to follow.