A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (19 page)

"Bu
t you can't remember the actual event?"

"What're you getting at?"

"You said they make you sleep around sixteen hours a day."

"And?"

"You're sure you've shaved, but you don't remember any particular time. Have you even really thought about it until I asked? I'm wondering if they've been hypnotizing you."

"To make me think I'm
shaving
?"

"To make you think your body is less altered than it is
," Felix said. "To keep you from having certain thoughts or wondering about certain things. You didn't know about it until Caitlin noticed."

Gideon ran his fingers over his face and through his hair.
"You may be right. But she said the sixteen hours were to help me heal. Why wouldn't she just tell me?"

Caitlin looked up from her computer.
"Even so, you kept repeating 'it doesn't matter' when I'd asked you what happened."

"How long
have
you been healing?" Felix asked. "That you weren't unconscious all the time, I mean."

Gideon scowled
, considering. "I don't know. But hypnotizing me every day like that? There would be more to it than just programming me not to ask questions."

Feli
x continued to think aloud. "Even if you did ask, if she went through the trouble of hypnotizing you to keep you from asking, I'd be surprised if she'd give you a straight answer."

Caitlin hummed in thought.
"Unless the hypnosis wasn't her idea?"

"I don't believe that I could trust what she'd tell me." Hands fisted, Gideon stood in an angry huff.
"I can't remember a time when I couldn't trust her. Now I'm trusting two people I hardly know? Tell me why that is."

Felix watched Gideon stand there, an otherwise intimidating presence who looked for the moment as if a strong wind might carry him away.
Confusion was taking a toll on the man, and Felix had no good answer for him. Not yet.

"I don't know," Caitlin and h
e answered together.

Gideon said no more
. He stepped to the window to look outside where the moonlight illuminated the dry landscape. Felix caught Caitlin's eye with a glance at her laptop, and she answered with a shake of her head that he took for "nothing yet." She wore the same concerned but helpless expression that he could feel on his own face.

"Gideon," he began, holding Caitlin's gaze. Gideon didn't let him finish.

"You'll excuse me," Gideon said before leaving the room toward the rest of the house. Felix heard the bathroom door close moments later.

"Perhaps we should give him a
bit of time," Caitlin said. "I don't know."

Felix
didn't know what to do, either. As soon as he knew that Gideon had gone into the bathroom, however, what he was sure of was what Gideon was checking. Were their places reversed, Felix was fairly certain he'd be doing the same. Gideon was going to unzip and see if he was still, biologically, a man.

At least that was Felix's guess. It was impossible to read anything in Gideon's face when he returned
, silently, to the kitchen a minute later. Felix gave the man his privacy in the matter.

"Gideon," Felix started instead, "what sort of projects does Ondrea work on, do you know?"

"Now, or in the past," Caitlin added cautiously.

Gideon took a d
eep breath and then exhaled, as though composing himself. Felix leaned forward just a little more.

"The exact nature of her work wasn't something I was normally privy to.
Aside from her assurance that it didn't deal with weapons systems, she took her non-disclosure agreements seriously." Gideon began to examine his hands, turning them over slowly. "I remember she liked to tinker. I suppose you might call it a hobby. She could take an existing design and build on it. Improve it. She made a few modifications to my own equipment. I didn't even ask her to, she just volunteered. I remember thinking she wanted to keep me safe."

Felix indulged a six-month-old curiosity.
"You had a stun flash in your palm. That hers?"

"I still have it," he said.
"And yes, that was one of her projects."

"It's no coincidence that Marquand put such a design on the market a few mon
ths ago, then," Caitlin said.

"Really?" Felix asked.
"I can't believe I missed hearing about that."

Caitlin gave the smallest of grins.
"Well you can't know everything, ducks," she whispered before turning to Gideon. "Was that the only sort of project she did?"

"She ran the gauntlet.
She's always been the smartest of us. The last thing I remember her working on was something with hearing. Aural implants? I think that was what she said. That was for Marquand. She was going to have me come into the labs to take some sort of response test. They needed some readings to work off of, and I think I remember her saying I fit a profile."

"Going to have you come in?" Felix repeated.
"You didn't?"

Gideon shook his head.
"I did not. Or, maybe I did. I don't— It's difficult to be sure." He sat down again, concentrating. "I can clearly recall her asking me to help. She's my sister, I told her I would. I went in to the labs. . ."

Felix waited as Gideon plumbed his memory. When the man finally scowled in defeat,
Felix couldn't resist plumbing a bit himself. "It was for hearing. Did they cover your ears with something?"

"I don't
— No. There was a chair with. . . It was like a frame of sorts that went around the headrest. I think I asked Ondrea about that. I thought maybe they were doing some sort of study about how my implants interacted with my brain. There was more to it, I think. Ondrea was telling me. . . something. Something else, something more now that I was there. We talked about it for. . . I don't know how long."

Felix waited as long as he could,
and then, "About what?"

"I can't remember.
It feels like a dream at this point. Maybe it wasn't even real. Maybe
this
isn't real. I can't remember!"

"What happened after you talked?
Did you go through with it?"

"Which part of
'I can't remember' do you not understand? I can't tell you everything, I don't
know
everything!" Gideon pushed to his feet so abruptly that, had he wished, he could have had his hands around Felix's neck before anyone could have stopped him.

Despite
the fire in his glare, Gideon made no move toward Felix. He went for the door instead.

"I'm going outside,"
Gideon grumbled without a backward glance. He slammed the door behind him, and was gone.

Caitlin sighed. "I rather think we pushed a little too hard, Felix."

"He's just standing out there, looking up at the sky," Felix reported from the kitchen window. "Doesn't look to be going anywhere. And if either of us was pushing, it was me. Think he's mad at us, or just his situation?"

"Perhaps a little of both.
More the latter, I would hope."

"Probably a good idea to give him a bit of time in a
ny case right now. I let my curiosity get the best of me, huh?"

Caitlin nodded wordlessly and let her gaze drift out the window past Felix.
Outside by her daisies was a man who'd had God-knows-what done to him. The possibly dangerous side effects of extensive cybernetic alteration, combined with the fact that he was so close, should have bothered her a little more. Perhaps it was just that he really did seem more subdued than she'd known him to be before. Perhaps she was just too involved in making amends for past mistakes at that point to turn away. Or perhaps, she decided, it was simply her own curiosity and foolishness that were to blame. Even if it was a combination of reasons, foolishness might very well top the list.

Crikey, did it make a difference
? She had brought a man on the run from a major corporation into her kitchen. What was done was done; there was little sense in brooding on it.

She smiled bitterly.
Like that would stop her.

Felix turned from the window and Caitlin tried to mask the bitterness in her expression before he caught it.
"Do you think you were onto something?" she asked.

He sat down beside her and clasped his hands on the tabletop. "Think it's a dead end?"

"Likely not. The last experiment he remembers? There's something there, I think. I meant to imply that you've a suspicion that you're aiming to have him confirm."

Felix shrugged.
"More a hunch, really. He said there was more to it, so I want to know more. I don't really know where that'll lead, but if it's not a piece of the puzzle, I'll eat my hat. 'Course I'll need to get a hat first."

"We're on the same page, then."

"Found anything good there?" He pointed to the laptop.

"Only basics, things we already know.
I'm searching ICGS now. I wish I could recall where I'd seen the more specific bits."

"You'll find it again."

Caitlin typed another few keywords and found her attention out the window again. "What do you suppose is going through his mind?"

"Other than
—"

She recognized the tone and cut him off with a gentle, "No jokes, Felix," adding a smile to soften it
further.

"Sorry, instinct's hard to fight.
If I were him, though, I'd be wondering what I was. How 'human' I still am."

"He's not as confident as he seems about not being a robot of some sort."

Felix paused in a way that made her doubt the word that came next. "Maybe."

"What are you getting at?"

Felix sighed. "If I'd just found out my body had been near-completely replaced and I was being hypnotized to ignore a lack of biological functioning. . ." He gave a meaningful glance at his lap.

"Oh. Crikey."

"He did just go into the bathroom."

"I should have guessed."

Felix shrugged. "Well, you're not a man. Not that I'm complaining."

"Even so," she replied.
"As if he didn't have enough to deal with."

"
Probably wouldn't the best idea to ask him about it."

Caitlin shot him a mildly appalled look, complete with raised eyebrow.
"I'm not in the habit of asking after the genitalia of blokes I'm not involved with, Felix."

"Caitlin," he replied with a smile, "if you're going to insist I never say anything stupid, you're going to be sorely disappointed."

"In your defense, one wonders how such a revelation might affect him."

"
That's if it's, well, gone. They do have functional synthetics." Felix crossed his legs and then nodded at the screen. "You seem to have found something there."

Caitlin
looked and found that her search had come upon a rather lengthy paper that promised to detail the physiological aspects of total adaptation. "This isn't something I've seen before," she said, "but it may be just as good."

"
Pay dirt," Felix declared, already diving in. "A 'physiological study.' It's a start, at the very least."

Caitlin read a few paragraphs alongside
Felix until her attention wandered across the table to where Gideon's discarded jumper lay. The paper wasn't going anywhere. "Give it a read, Felix. I'm beginning to think it unwise to leave Gideon out there overlong."

Felix looked up from the
screen and moved a little closer to her. "Want me to come with you?"

She shook her head and brushed her hand over his.
"Stay and read. I'll be alright."

He gave the screen a lingering flicker of a glance before looking back to her.
"This can easily wait."

"If we both go he may feel pressured again.
We'll only be on the lawn, Felix," she said. "Close enough for that boosted hearing of yours if anything goes," she hesitated on the word, neither wishing to worry him nor tempt fate, "wrong."

He nodded. "I should know by now you can take care of yourself.
But call if either of you need me. I'll just be in here reading about the possible psychological instabilities of total cybernetic adaptation," he said with a smile.

She smiled back in appreciation of his worry and kissed his forehead.
"Subtle, ducks."

"As a cow in a tutu."

When she reached him, Gideon was standing near the cottonwood tree that grew a little way up her driveway
. His back was to her as he watched the sky. Though her footfalls were quiet along the grass, he must have heard her approach: when she'd drawn within ten paces, he spoke without turning. "I keep thinking there's something up there."

Caitlin cast her eyes up at the twinkling, velvet curtain.
"In the sky?"

"On t
he Moon."

"Mm. What do you think is up there?"

"I don't know. Something I'm supposed to remember."

He continued to stare
upward. Caitlin stepped nearer, still standing behind him, but not so far back that he couldn't see her. She was careful to stay further than arms length, though not so much, she hoped, that it was obvious.

"You've had a lot of demands of that nature lately, haven't you?"

Gideon's only response was an affirmative grunt.

"You know," she began again, "Felix
—and I—are only asking to try to help you. We could take a break from our questions for a time, if you'd prefer."

"You're curious as well," he said.
"The both of you."

Not without a
pang of guilt, Caitlin nodded. "I suppose that's a fair assessment. But curiosity alone wouldn't have made me bring you here."

"Don't be defensive, it was no rebuke."

"What, then?"

He shook his head.

"It's just that you seem to have rather little patience for curiosity tonight, Gideon."

"Curiosity is a virtue.
You Scry take strength from it."

"
But?"

He was silent for long enough that she began to suspect he wouldn't answer.

"When each question," he said finally, "is a reminder that—that something about me is
wrong
!" He stopped suddenly, just breathing. "It gets difficult."

Caitlin said nothing, not wishing to interrupt and unsure what to say if she did.
Gideon seemed content with the silence. Again Caitlin pondered the wisdom of having him there, and again dismissed it as a choice already made. Yet Gideon's mention of The Scry did bring a new worry to light. Her concerns found their way to her lips before she'd given the matter much thought.

"What
do you plan to do after all of this? Will you go back to your old activities?" Caitlin stopped short of asking if he'd planned to involve himself with The Scry as he had before. If the resumption of his old course had not occurred to him, she had no wish to plant the thought in his mind.

"I don't know," he answered after a time.
"I'm unsure it's even my choice to make anymore. Am I in control?" He shook his head in the dim light. "I did have plans. There were things that I felt were important for what I—what I was doing."

"You
don't sound terribly certain."

"I remember that I
felt
those plans were important. Now, I no longer feel them, I only know that I made them." He took a breath. "But I feel other things. I'm not a soulless machine if that's what you're about to say."

"It isn't."
She felt his confusion, his unease. "But do you feel anything from, well, before?" she added, immediately wishing she'd omitted the "but."

Gideon wh
irled to face her, and she flinched. That he made no additional move kept her from running or dodging further. Tensed to react, she met his gaze. The haunted uncertainty that showed there spoke for him. Gideon had startled her, but he was the frightened one.

"Wh
at can we do to help?" she asked finally.

Instead of answering, Gideon's attention went suddenly behind her.
"What's that?"

Caitlin turned. Stars dotted the sky above the border of her house and the faint silhouette of the hills on the horizon. She saw nothing; there was no movement, only darkness and moonlight.
His vision likely outdid hers, yet before she could form the obvious question, she heard it: the low whine of an approaching floater.

"They found me
!" Gideon whispered. "Your boyfriend led them to me!"

Caitlin shook her head. "They're here, it doesn't matter how
—"

"There's no cover! It's too open!"

She could make out two floaters now, soaring closer, their blinking lights highlighting them in the sky. Gideon was right. The only real cover in the open landscape was her house—an obvious choice. The next closest thing was her neighbours' barn just a quarter mile away, but with the floaters so close, there wasn't time. And home or not, she couldn't draw them into this, to say nothing of putting the horses in the line of fire. Mother of God, would it come to that?

Spotl
ights flashed from each floater to lance across the ground in a rapid search. "Bloody hell," she whispered.

"Inside!" Gideo
n ordered. "Run!"

There was no more time to think. Gideon bolted for the door, and
Caitlin followed. A spotlight caught them as they gained the driveway. Their footfalls crashed on the gravel and they reached her porch surrounded in light, flung open the door, and dashed inside.