Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield (16 page)

Danya smiled. A very grown-up smile, slightly sad, and ironic. “You're perfect,” he said. “For us.”

Sandy knew exactly what he meant. And smiled back. “Look,” she said. “I don't know what we are yet. All four of us together. I'd like to say ‘family,’ but ‘family’ is very contrived, isn't it? You guys are certainly family, but I'm not your flesh and blood, I'm not
anyone's
flesh and blood…”

“Semantics,” said Danya.

Sandy blinked. She hadn't suspected he'd know that word, nor use it so well. “Maybe. But the point is that none of us are used to this. I'm not. You're not.” Her smile grew broader. “None of us really knows what the hell we're doing. So here's what I think. We're a…”

“…team,” Danya echoed with her, at almost the same moment. “We've always been a team, me, Svet, and Kiril. That's what I'd always tell them, what Svet always needs to hear when she's off in Svetlana land, chasing Svetlana rainbows. It's all of us together. The way I see it, the team just grew by one more, that's all.”

Sandy sighed and squeezed his arm. Stupid to think that Danya would need to have any of this explained to him.

“That's how I explain it to Svet and Kiril, anyhow,” Danya finished.

“Okay, good,” said Sandy, getting his very full attention. “But any team, whether it's military or sports or whatever, has different people doing different roles. In military teams, the two who make everything work are officers and non-coms, meaning sergeants. Officers have to look at the big picture, watch the broader environment, make sure nothing surprises the team. And the sergeant's like an officer, he's in charge, but he pays attention not just to the big picture, but also to the small picture—where everyone's standing, what they're doing, how they're feeling. He really runs the team, because it's his job to translate what the officer says into real actions on the ground, you get that?”

“You think you can be the officer, and me the sergeant?”

Sandy nodded. “That way, we both kinda know what we're doing. But here's the thing. Good sergeants don't just blindly do whatever dumb thing their officers tell them. Good sergeants think for themselves. And I gotta tell you, Danya, the main reason I'm happy to have you three in my life where I'd be reluctant with any other kids, is because you three can think for yourselves.”

“And you don't have to worry about ruining our lives, because our lives were already fucked up,” Danya quipped. Good lords, it was almost a joke. The truth, but spoken with humour, dry but real.

“That too,” said Sandy. “In this culture, Danya, we think of kids as innocents. I couldn't inflict my life on anyone innocent. But you guys…”

“Trust me,” said Danya, with a light in his eyes. “This is a big improvement.”

Sandy grinned. “I'm so glad you think so. But keep your eyes open, because it'd be a damn shame to make it all the way through Droze, only to get knocked off in Tanusha.”

It would be a horrid warning to give to most children. But Danya laughed and looked entirely more happy with things. Like suddenly he was on familiar ground.

After he'd gone upstairs to check on his siblings, Sandy checked her message lights. One was Vanessa.

“
Everything okay?
” Vanessa asked, with every expectation that it was.

“Just fine,” said Sandy. “They're happy, Danya just made a joke, we're going to have a good day.”

“
Wonderful
,” Vanessa said happily. “
Today I'm having a lot of sex. That's on top of a lot of sex yesterday evening as well
.”

“Currently between bouts?” Sandy asked.

“
Ice-cream sundae refreshment break
.”

“Want me to come and towel you off?”

“
Ooh. Now you're making me really horny
.”

The other light was Rhian's, with just the same question. Sandy told her about breakfast. “
That's not fair
,” Rhian laughed. “
I had to train my latest two from bodily functions on upward. Yours come combat drilled and field tested
.”

The doorbell rang. Sandy excused herself from Rhian's call and went to the door. It was Kushbu Iyengar, civil rights lawyer extraordinaire and friend of hers for the past five years.

“Cassandra!” A slim, grey and mild-mannered Tamil, he would have merely kissed her cheek, but the delight on his face deserved a hug, so she gave him one, one armed. “So glad you're back. Not that I ever doubted it.” She released him. “Nor had the foggiest where you were, of course.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” she said. “Lovely to see you again.”

“Oh, look, a little bird told me you had some additions to your household, and I knew I really shouldn't be bothering you on your first morning back, but I was just in the neighbourhood from visiting one of the Justices on other business, and I have some news I thought you'd find fascinating.”

He indicated a folder he was holding, expectantly. “More arrivals?” Sandy asked.

“Yes!” said Kushbu, looking quite pleased. “There were another seven GIs arriving while you were gone, including three non-combat designations!” He beamed. Non-combats were relatively rare. He, Sandy, and others had worked often the past five years to lodge their asylum applications, Kushbu and his legal pro-bonos navigating that process while Sandy covered the security side, which was always the biggest hurdle to defecting League GIs wanting asylum. “Two of them have just fascinating stories, would you like to see?”

Sandy sighed, leaning on the doorframe, not moving aside. Kushbu looked puzzled. “Do you mind if I don't?” she said.

Kushbu blinked. “Of course, if you're too busy…oh, look, how silly of me, I really should have called first before surprising you like this, but I…”

“No no no,” said Sandy sadly. “It was lovely of you to come. But I think it's time the Callayan asylum seekers began to manage without me.”

Another blink. “But you'll want to sit in on the asylum applications, surely?”

“Kushbu, the system has become very accustomed to League GIs arriving here and claiming residency. There's quite a lot of opposition to those claims simply because of my involvement. Maybe it's time to see how things work without me.”

“Cassandra, I assure you, your expertise on the security side of things and your personal familiarity with the confusion faced by our asylum seekers are invaluable!”

“But there are so many here now,” said Sandy. “And a lot of them are quite capable of taking my place. I think it's time they did so. I think I've been too soft on them, and too willing to just let them ride on my coattails.”

Kushbu looked taken aback. It hurt to see it. But she'd hurt a lot lately and was used to it. “Well, of course, Cassandra, if that's how you truly feel.”

“It is. I'll talk to you again soon, and thank you for coming by. But I have other priorities now.”

She gave him a farewell kiss on the cheek and left the gentle lawyer staring dumbfounded at the closed door.

FSA had acquired quite a team of experts. They clustered about Kiril now in the medical ward, a big, shiny room with wide windows and a large view over green gardens and Federal compound buildings. Kiril sat in a comfortable chair within the scanning paddles, an uplink receptive headset on. The head doctor, whom Sandy understood was an outside expert, chair of a prestigious institute, and quite famous in the field, asked Kiril cheerful questions and introduced him to various stimuli—listening to recorded sounds at various decibel levels and ranges, watching holographic images, tracking moving targets, then touching alternately some ice and a cup just hot from the microwave. They even gave him some chocolate to eat, then a biscuit, then some cheese, just to watch the different brain activity from each.

Other doctors compared it to the uploaded activity model Cai had given Sandy to take back to Tanusha. It was far beyond Sandy's expertise—there were few who knew better than her what to do with uplinks once established, but the process of getting them established was a field that ten years of solid tape teach and a genius-level IQ still was no guarantee of mastering. It pleased her, though, to have so many bright folks gathered around Kiril. Danya and Svetlana watched, with no complaint from the doctors, some of whom even explained as best they could what the various displays and technologies they were operating did. Danya looked cautious as always, but no longer paranoid. Just quiet and watchful.

“This one,” said CSA Intel Director Naidu, after a warm embrace with Sandy and some minutes watching proceedings from behind the glass of an adjoining office. Nodding at Danya. “This boy's impressive. Thirteen, you say?”

Sandy nodded. “And nine months.”

“So calm. Objectively, would you rate his intelligence?”

Objectively? Sandy smiled. “I'm not sure I can do objectively with these three.”

“I've adjusted assessments for bias before,” Naidu deadpanned. “It's not unknown.”

“He's extremely clever. Top fifth percentile, my objective guess. I'd think each of them only had a fifty percent chance of surviving what they survived, that makes the odds of all three surviving one in eight. It's all due to him, Svetlana says so too.”

“But he's paid a price for his wisdom.”

Sandy looked at him sideways. “Compiling for the psych report?”

“We all have them, Cassandra,” said Naidu, thumbs hooked into his belt beneath a considerable, authoritative belly. “Me, you, Director Ibrahim, all our close family and relevant friends.”

“I'm not complaining,” Sandy said mildly. “I'd be pleased to see this under your authority.”

Naidu shrugged. “You're a Callayan citizen; that makes it primarily a CSA responsibility.” In the ongoing struggle over the CSA, FSA overlap, where the former handled Callayan issues, and the latter Federal ones. Based in the same city, sharing many of the same personnel, including Sandy, the problem wasn't going away any time soon.

“Danya has stress issues,” said Sandy. She didn't like
informing
on him like this, but it had to be done, someone would compile the psych report, and best they heard it direct from her to someone solid like Naidu. “And trust issues, as you'd imagine. He's not dysfunctional though, none of them are. In fact, given his environment until now, I'd say Danya is ultra-functional and completely adapted. The question is how well he re-adapts.”

Naidu nodded soberly, uncommenting.

“Very clever,” she continued, “very observant, very cautious. A real problem solver. Mostly non-aggressive, he'll do anything to protect Svet and Kiri, but he's an avoider. He keeps out of the way, tries to be polite, keeps a tight rein on his temper.”

“Has he killed, do you know?”

“No,” said Sandy, quite certain. “He might lie if he had, but Svetlana's very bad at lying, and she insists not. Danya might be able to keep a secret from Kiril, but I doubt he could from Svetlana.”

Naidu pursed his lips. “I have to ask. It becomes a primary focal point with children.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath. “Almost completely selfless where Svet and Kiri are concerned. I don't know if his brain even truly understands the concept of ‘I.’ It's all ‘we.’”

Naidu looked at her. She must have choked up a little as she said it. And Naidu repressed a faint, private smile beneath his greying moustache.

“And the girl,” he said. “Lovely little thing, isn't she? But you'll need to feed her, she's so skinny.”

“The way she eats she should have doubled in size by now. It's a metabolism thing from their upbringing, they've all got it.” Svetlana was sitting alongside a doctor, peering at his screen as the doctor explained things. Far more trusting than Danya. “Svetlana has a very well-developed sense of ‘I,’” Sandy said with irony. “Danya thinks in terms of ‘we,’ but Svetlana thinks ‘I’ plus everyone else…foremost of whom are her brothers, of course. Which makes her attachment possessive, I think. ‘We’ is not possessive; it's collective. Svetlana is possessive of her brothers, which makes her a lot more aggressive in her attachments.

“She's as clever as Danya, but she's never had that responsibility, never been the eldest. Maybe Danya looked out for her too well…I mean, she's incredibly self-sufficient by the usual standards of ten-year-olds, but she's adjusted to stress and deprivation by
wanting
things. And maybe she's compensated for Danya's caution by just going and getting things when he'd rather hang back.”

“Selfish?” Naidu suggested.

“Intensely self-interested,” Sandy corrected. Recalling what Naidu said about adjusting for bias and seeing his noncommittal expression. “An alternative survival response. And far more emotionally engaged.”

“And thus capacity for negative emotion as well as positive,” said Naidu.

“Hey,” Sandy said coolly. “Me too.”

“You control it well.”

“So does she. She's still alive.”

“Thanks to her brother,” Naidu added. Sandy gave him a hard look. “Now this one, I hear, has taken life.”

“Very recently. Danya was being held by a crime boss. The corporations were coming to take him. Good chance if she had not acted, Danya would be dead. Or in corporate custody, which might be worse.”

“How many?”

“She says three. Danya thinks perhaps as many as five.”

Naidu looked at her for a long, solemn moment. “How?”

“Handgun. Point blank. Walked through several rooms shooting until she reached Danya.” She did not mention the flashbangs. A ten-year-old who remained clear-headed enough to use flashbangs to prepare a room before entering with lethal force scared even her.

Naidu took a deep breath. And murmured something Sandy couldn't hear. “In a ten-year-old, this is…”

“Determined,” Sandy said firmly.

“
Developed
,” Naidu replied carefully. “Alarmingly developed. Most ten-year-olds cannot muster the resolve…”

“Most ten-year-olds haven't grown up starving, seeing other ten-year-olds getting raped and murdered.” She might have said it too loudly. Naidu's lingering look suggested as much. “She did what she had to do. She did it out of love.”

“And in doing so demonstrated a capacity to conceptualise other human beings as deserving of death, and acting upon that conceptualisation. The literature says that if the child is placed into that situation through a social construct, like a child soldier, say, that's one thing. The catalytic influence was external, and the child can regain a normal growth path from that point on, if removed from the external influence and treated correctly. But for a child to reach these conclusions and act on them all on her own, at such a young age, is an indication of potential psychopathy.”