Thirty-Five
THIRTY-FIVE
“We’re still at the hospital,” Thea explained, as soon as Martim was alone in a car driving away from the arena. “The doctors want to run more tests and keep him here overnight.”
“I told him to follow concussion protocol and go in earlier to get checked out,” Martim exclaimed. “He shouldn’t have gone straight back to work after nearly being killed by a car bomb, for Chrissakes.”
The uncomfortable pause that followed made Martim regret his outburst. Any mention of the bombing no doubt brought up horrifying memories for the bodyguard.
Two months later, it was still difficult for him to accept the breathy voice and the sultry magazine-cover face behind it as belonging to River Thea and not Uchi’s ex-wife.
If his brain stumbled every time he saw Thea, he could only imagine how disorienting the adjustment had been for her.
Before he could apologize for his insensitivity, Thea said, “Let’s just say he’s not happy about being stuck here. He wants you to bring him everything he needs to read in advance of the production review on Monday. As well as his sweater and the scarf hanging in his office, you know the one.”
Martim’s annoyance sharpened. Obviously, Uchi’s symptoms weren’t bad enough to make him follow the doctors’ advice to rest. If there was one person who would work on his deathbed, though, it was Sandbar Uchi.
Medical issues were bound to crop up in a workaholic seventy-year-old, but the timing was less than ideal.
Right now, Uchi needed to project an appearance of vitality and strength, to position a nomination to the Board of Directors as a foregone conclusion.
It wasn’t a good time for him to disappear from view, or seem fragile or infirm.
Thank goodness, Martim thought, that he’d spoken to Thea after leaving Condor Anand’s company.
Terraformist ally or not, the less the Puppetmaster knew, the better.
Martim started adding things to his mental to-do list. Have the director’s secretary reschedule every nonurgent obligation before the production review.
Write up a statement for Uchi to give to the press that would keep them mollified.
Come up with a benign and convincing reason for his client to disappear for a few days so he could actually take recovery seriously.
“Martim? Are you listening?”
He gave his head a sharp shake. “Yeah, I hear you. I’ll transfer the files to him.”
“Unfortunately, you’ll have to load up a screen and bring it to him personally. The director doesn’t trust the hospital’s electronic security. Says his enemies want to keep him off the Board at all costs and are always trying to hack into SoCon GasPro to spy on us and steal information.”
With anyone else, the measures would seem overcautious, but Uchi was justified in his paranoia.
Martim sighed; going to the office to retrieve everything Uchi wanted and then going to the hospital was going to cost him time he’d hoped to spend on other things, including a much-needed power nap.
Nor did he especially want to visit the hospital again, although if Thea was there, he didn’t have any excuse.
When he got to Oasis Ishaan Hospital an hour later, he found the bodyguard standing outside the closed door to Uchi’s private room.
It was strange that she was now shorter than him.
It was also impossible not to marvel at how remarkably lifelike the 8G model was compared with older models.
Occasionally, Thea stood or sat too still, but those things were hard to notice unless one stared closely and for some time.
And it was tempting to do exactly that: stare.
Fern Madison had been strikingly beautiful in her youth and Uchi had spared no expense designing her second-stage chassis.
“He’s still in there with the doctors,” Thea said, indicating the closed door. She was wearing a simple, professional outfit, black pants and a gray button-up shirt, but Martim couldn’t help but notice how the fabric hugged her new hourglass figure. “You can leave his things with me if you want.”
“I’ll wait,” he said. “I need to talk to him.”
She nodded. Her businesslike brusqueness had always seemed normal to him.
But now, with those full red lips and big, long-lashed eyes, she came off as haughty, bitchy even, as if she were inviting his eye to linger and then brushing him off.
The reaction was hardly fair; Martim reminded himself that underneath the curvy new body, she was still the same person.
Fern Madison wanted to turn heads, but a security guard wasn’t supposed to be noticed.
Adjusting to life in second stage would be hard enough for anyone, but Thea had to put up with people suddenly gawking or leering at her, attracted and confused by her existence.
She noticed his overlong attention and shifted her gaze away uncomfortably. Even that very human reaction, avoidance of eye contact, was unusually and convincingly natural.
Martim looked toward their client’s closed door. “So, what did the doctors say?”
Thea shrugged—another oddly normal action. “No idea. He summoned his personal physician and his synthtech surgeon. They’re the only ones he’s allowing to view his test results and to treat him. He doesn’t want to risk any of the other doctors here leaking his personal information.”
Good Lord, it was exhausting to think of all the ways Uchi’s enemies might come after him.
But it was indeed possible someone might try to gain access to his medical records in an attempt to find weaknesses they could use against him.
Martim made a note to himself to discuss the troubling possibility with the director.
Proactive measures might be called for. At this rate, Martim mused, he was going to become one of Crater’s highest-revenue clients.
“When do you think the director will be out of here? If he’s going to be a while, we need to come up with an explanation for his absence and maybe pull in the Communications folks.”
“I’m just a midtrac, not an atier.”
That seemed to be a strong hint that she didn’t want to talk further.
Thea had been on cordial terms with everyone in Uchi’s office, but like Martim, her proximity to the director kept her at a certain distance.
Rocco had been her one real friend, the one colleague she could be chummy with, but Rocco was dead.
Now that she was a jarbrain, and an extremely unusual one at that, people steered clear.
Nor would she ever be accepted into the wealthy, geriatric circles of second-stage society.
She appeared to be dealing with the social isolation of her situation by shoring up an even stiffer professional veneer of competent self-sufficiency.
Martim shifted his feet. He could hardly say his treatment of the bodyguard was an exception.
He used to talk to Rocco and Thea, but ever since she’d been recorporalized, his only conversations with her were the necessary ones he couldn’t avoid.
He could attribute some of that to the unsettled reaction that a lot of people felt toward second stagers, but there was more to it than that.
He’d been the only one other than Uchi to see her that night—naked, maimed, and terrified.
He’d drawn up the unprecedented contract that had put her through recorp and made her a permanent piece of property.
Every time he contemplated what responsibility he bore for saving and enslaving River Thea, it left him confused and conflicted.
“I should’ve asked earlier,” he ventured, “but… how are you doing? Are you adjusting okay?”
She turned to him, face blank with surprise, as if it was the first time anyone had bothered to ask her the question, which it probably was.
“I think so,” she answered hesitantly, pushing a lock of copper hair behind one ear.
“The scientists have run all sorts of tests on me and they say I’m doing fine.
Better than fine, all things considered. ”
“You seem to be handling it very well,” Martim said.
Even in this era of vastly improved synthtech, not everyone made it through the Process with their mind and personality intact.
And 8G synthtech was new and unproven; she was lucky nothing had gone catastrophically wrong.
“It must be at least somewhat easier for you, right? I mean, having been through a transition before, and now…” He gestured vaguely at her new form.
Thea’s eyebrows rose. “Right,” she said curtly. “Because it’s a dream come true. Who wouldn’t want a bombshell body like this?” She pushed her lips out in a sultry pout, cocked one hip, and tossed her hair back in mocking mimicry of Fern Madison posing for the cameras.
Taken aback by the sarcasm, Martim took a step back and let out a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t mean to suggest being recorped is what you wanted. It’s awful what happened to you. I’m just thankful there was a way for… things to not turn out even worse that night.”
His awkward sincerity softened her expression and she gave him a somewhat friendlier look.
“Me too.” She straightened back up and glanced down at herself.
“I wasn’t entirely joking, you know. Not long ago, I used to envy women like Madison.
But… this isn’t what I ever imagined.” She paused.
Martim didn’t think she would say more, but then she added, “The first two weeks of second stage were really hard. It was as if I’d died and become a ghost in someone else’s body.
I saw a stranger in the mirror and heard someone else’s voice when I spoke.
I’d be okay for a few hours, then suddenly remember I’m not breathing anymore. ”
Martim suppressed a shudder.
“The worst part has been losing people,” she added, voice muted. “Rocco, of course. He was a genuinely good guy. And there are those who don’t want anything to do with me anymore because I’m a jarbrain, even though the alternative’s being dead.”