Forty-Two
FORTY-TWO
Twenty minutes ago
The windows outside the Elite Renewal clinic were still pitch dark as the synthtech doctor ran his tests. Normally, at this ungodly hour, Martim would be tired, achy, and in dire need of a boost. At least second stage made keeping Uchi’s habit of early mornings more bearable.
“Wonderful,” Martim said dryly.
Dr. Lucan nodded in agreement, oblivious to his sarcasm. “Director Uchi’s known for being a visionary terraformist, but his contributions to the advancement of synthtechnology will be equally important to history.” He added quickly, “Your part in this is significant, too, of course.”
“What did he offer you?” Martim asked, because there must be something. He knew his client’s methods for getting what he wanted, having been the one to execute them more often than not. “What reward did he promise you, for performing a blatantly illegal recorporalization?”
The smile slipped off the doctor’s round face.
“You have the wrong idea,” he replied with stiff umbrage.
“The director and I worked together on developing 8G for years. It would’ve been an enormous loss to science, a staggering waste of research and investment, if this revolutionary model had to be discarded because the director’s medical condition prevented him from going through recorporalization.
And that’s not even taking into account his vital importance to the terraforming movement and the risk of losing our progress on that front. ”
“There has to be a more personal reason, for you to risk termination if this ever comes out,” Martim said. “You stand to make a fortune from 8G synthtech, assuming Director Uchi gave you free rein to exploit all the upgrades he financed and the data you collect out of this.”
“Thousands of second-stage lives will be made better,” Lucan declared.
Martim stood. At first, he’d reveled in his new body’s height, but lately, it had begun to annoy him. He didn’t like looking down on people as much as he thought he would. “I want to see him.”
The doctor drew back, turning to Thea with a frown. She shook her head. “I didn’t tell him. He figured it out himself.”
“I know Director Uchi is here in cryo,” Martim said. “I think it would help me, to see him. To remember that he’s still him, and I’m still me. Just for a few minutes. After what you put me through, it’s the least you could do.”
“Well, technically, we’re not supposed to…” Dr. Lucan shifted his weight unhappily, but when seconds passed and neither Martim nor Thea relented, he grumbled reluctantly, “All right. Just this one time, if you think it’ll help you. Come with me.”
Martim followed the doctor into the centermost area of the second floor, where he was told to wait in a room adjacent to the research lab.
Lucan left and returned fifteen minutes later, guiding a med trolley carrying a covered cryostasis unit.
A panel along the side of the white pill-shaped capsule glowed with readout lights.
When the doctor pulled the covering aside, Martim felt the clammy anxiety of that interview day out in the gas field, years ago, when he’d faced the tinted black doors of the converted shuttlebus and they had swung open portentously for him.
He made himself walk up to the capsule and look down.
Sandbar Uchi looked as if he was sleeping peacefully, or perhaps simply resting with his eyes closed, catching one of those fifteen-minute power naps he occasionally took before plowing headlong into another marathon of meetings and decision-making.
Martim half expected his client to open his eyes and demand, What have you got for me, Martim?
Recorporalization had taught Martim that the brain possessed a map of the body.
Taking away the pathways of flesh and blood didn’t stop stubborn neurons from trying to give and receive signals in response to emotion.
An intense pressure was building in Martim’s chest, as if the breath were being squeezed out of lungs he no longer needed or possessed.
As if it were yesterday, he recalled the moment in the interview when Uchi had taken off the data visor and looked directly at him, those hyperfocused gray eyes seeing straight through his designer-label armor to the heart of his insecurity and longing.
Ever since that day, he realized, he’d been chasing that elusive jolt of attention, trying to make himself into the person worthy of Sandbar Uchi’s undivided attention.
“Fuck you, sir,” he whispered. “I’m not you. I don’t want to be you. I hate you.”
The words were wretched, but they held no heat. He meant them, but he wished, more than anything in that moment, for Sandbar Uchi to wake up and take charge again, to start issuing orders that would let Martim slip back into the difficult but simple nature of client service.
To serve is to live.
A massive boom sounded from outside the building, loud enough to shudder the floor beneath their feet. “What’s going on?” Dr. Lucan exclaimed as security alarms began to blare overhead.
“The clinic’s under attack. Someone knows you’re here.
” Thea could barely be heard over the clamor.
She strode for the door, cupping a hand over her earpiece and barking terse instructions to the SoCon guards outside.
She spun around before she exited. “Stay here,” she ordered Martim.
The bodyguard’s stare brooked no argument and her voice was steely with angry determination.
Her small, pale hand went to her triggersheath.
“I’m going to take care of this.” Before Martim could say a word in reply, she plowed out of the room.
Dr. Lucan hovered near the door, clearly agitated over whether it was safer to join the rest of the staff or to stay behind Uchi’s security.
Martim raised his head indifferently to the strobing lights and the shrieking alarms. The thought of a massive explosion bringing the entire building down on them in a cascade of concrete rubble held remarkably little terror for him.
He’d lost his life before already. Maybe he’d lost it long before he’d gained this one.
Martim put a hand on the capsule, closed it into a fist. He bent close to the glass, wishing his client could hear him.
“ Memento mori ,” he whispered, as softly as if to a lover.
Even if he escaped whoever was coming to kill him, even if he succeeded at this final, lonely assignment, what awaited him wasn’t Uchi’s uncommon regard, an Exclusive contract, or the prestige of an Agency name—only anonymity and oblivion.
To live is to die.
“Your favorite philosopher from ancient Earth was born a slave. He served a rich and powerful man in the emperor’s court.
” Martim smiled through the phantom ache in his chest. “Epictetus once said, ‘You become what you give your attention to.’ I like to think… maybe he knew what it was like to be an atier.”
Panicked shouting and the sound of fighting in the hallway reached Martim as if from a great distance. “You told me to remember: ‘First say to yourself what you would be.’ I’d be someone other than what you made me. I would be myself again.”