Kelley Eskridge (5 page)

“She's got the determination gene.”

“She's got it twice. So eventually she
drew up a shortlist of names, ranked in order of maximum cross-cultural
positive impact combined with religious inferences of leadership,
strength, and wisdom. Stop laughing.”

“I can't. Really, I can't…here, take this
before I spill any more.” Jackal smiled and drank.

Snow said, “I guess Mouse wasn't at the
top of the list.”

“Nope.”

“Emu.”

Jackal shook her head.

“Swamp thing.”

“If my mother had her way, you'd be
calling me Elephant.”

Snow gave a delighted hoot, and Jackal
began to giggle helplessly. They ended up on their backs in the sand,
heads together, their laughter bubbling up toward the sky. Jackal
imagined the vapor of their breath adding a layer to the moon-bright
cirrus trails overhead, their merriment carried in the belly of a cloud
until it rained down in some far-off spot. Today of all days, I can't
believe I'm laughing, she thought. Bless Snow.

“Where are those sandwiches?” she
demanded. “I'm starving. Hey, don't drink all the wine.”

“So what was wrong with Elephant?”

“You mean apart from the fact that my
mother wanted it so bad?”

Snow crooked her head. “Was that it?”

Jackal thought about it around another
mouthful. “I suppose it was a little. It wasn't so much that I would
have said no to anything she came up with.… It was more that all her
choices seemed so wrong for me. She kept saying ‘Oh, they're only my
ideas, little one, you make your own choice.’ But it was so clear even
then that she wanted me to choose to be an elephant or an eagle or an
oak. And I just wanted a name, you know? I didn't want to wear a word
like some kind of world responsibility around my neck for the rest of
my life. And it was winter, and I was tired of being cold, and I didn't
know what I was, only what I wasn't. I sure wasn't anything on her
list. So I finally sorted out all the books that described warm-weather
climates and fauna, and opened them at random. One of them said that
jackals were related to wolves and ran in packs and were scavengers,
and it said—I'll never forget this—it said ‘The jackal's cry is even
more terrifying than that of the hyena.’ And I thought, that's what I
want. I want to run with my web and be wild, survive anywhere, and I
want everyone to get out of the way when I yell.”

“Well,” Snow said finally.

“I was only twelve.”

“A rebel.”

“I was just mad at everything.” She was
getting a crick in her neck; she stretched hard and felt cool air seep
into the spaces where her clothes pulled back from her wrists and
ankles.

“What do you think a rebel is?” Snow said
matter-of-factly. And then, dismissively, surprising Jackal, “Your
mother has no imagination. But there's your answer, anyway. You picked
a name because it meant something you wanted to be, not something you
were. It suits you because you grew into it. Maybe you'd be different
if you were Elephant.” She unwrapped a sandwich, examined it a moment;
then folded back a corner of the bread and began to pick out and nibble
bits of corned beef. “Everyone would expect you to be wise and
thoughtful. Deliberate. Have thick legs.” Snow was piked, Jackal
realized, and then saw the second bottle standing in the dead-soldier
position in a carefully built dome of sand next to Snow's right knee.
“So,” she continued, “are you like that jackal in the book?”

“I don't know. I guess I won't know for a
while.… Have you ever seen someone who looked like they grew into
exactly the right face for them? That's what I want. I don't think I
have it yet.”

“So what does the right face of a Hope
look like? Jackal, what's the—oh, here, let me help. Poor baby. I'm
right here. Take this, wipe your mouth. Damn all cheap wine. Let's get
you home.”

She could feel Snow's drunken worry as she
drove, trying to watch Jackal and keep on the road at the same time.
Jackal felt dizzy, and when she closed her eyes she saw Tiger, Chao,
her mother.…

“Stop the car,” she said thickly, and Snow
made a little sound and wobbled the car to the side of the road. Jackal
opened her door and leaned her head out. When she was done, she wiped
her mouth on the hem of her tunic even though the cloth was gritty with
sand. The cool air on her face did not make her any less drunk, but it
steadied her. She put her mother and Tiger and the rest of it back into
its particular box inside her, clamped the lid tight. She was so tired.

“Take me home,” she said. “I'm sorry I hit
Tiger and I don't want to feel bad, I want to go home and have mad sex
and then just hold onto you, you're the only good thing in the whole
fucking world right now.”

“Okay, honey.” Snow leaned over and kissed
Jackal on the side of the mouth, said pragmatically, “But you'll have
to brush your teeth first,” and put the car into gear. Jackal leaned
back. The night sky above her was clear now: all that joy gone, sobbed
up into the clouds that the cold winds of Ko had blown to shreds.
Winter was coming.

SHE DID NOT WANT TO FACE THE DAY.
SHE HATED MORN
ings, especially the bright, cheerful ones that
bustled in before a person was ready; but the insistent hand on her hip
would not let her fall back into unconsciousness.

“Jackal. Jackal, wake up.”

She found herself facedown, so tangled in
her sheet that she could barely move. Her favorite woven blanket, worn
from long use, was wrapped around her. Her feet and calves were rough
with bits of sand, and her throat felt as if she'd eaten a handful.

“How are you?” Snow asked gently.

Jackal thought about it. “Not so bad,” she
said finally, a little surprised.

“That's good.” Snow stroked her head.

“Can I have just another hour? I didn't
get enough sleep.”

A wicked smile from Snow. “No one to blame
but yourself.”

“And you,” Jackal said, smiling back. She
loved sex with Snow, the two-step of safety and free-fall, the
immediacy and intensity of their bodies straining and sweaty, hips and
bellies and breasts against each other. It made Jackal feel bigger than
herself, larger in the world. Her body was sore, but her heart was not
as bruised as it had been.

She watched Snow move to the wide window
at the east end of the room and open it to a sky like gossamer over the
South China Sea, sheets of green-gray clouds lit by stripes of
sunlight. A slow, warm breeze brought salt and seabird voices into the
room. Jackal loved her window, and the terrace that looked over the sea
toward Hong Kong and Kowloon beyond. The entire apartment block curved
long and low around this part of the island coast, full of light and
space, wood and stone, water and wind, built especially for her web
because she was the Hope; like her parents' house close by on the other
side of the greenbelt, nestled in the dunes, also beautiful, a special
growing-up place for the special child of Ko.

Snow said, “It's after nine. You'll be
late for Neill if we don't hurry.”

That brought Jackal out of bed in spite of
her aches and the need for more sleep. She still remembered the first
time she had been punished in school: little Ren, hair windblown
straight out from her head, breathless from running but still late,
made to stand in front of the class while Mr. Tirani instructed the
other children to tell her, one at a time, “It's wrong to keep others
waiting.” Then she was required to apologize, and thank her classmates
for their help. Afterwards, he took her aside and dried her tears,
saying, “You have a very big responsibility, Ren, even though you're
still a little girl. But we will all help you be equal to it.”

Now Tirani was one of the people that
stepped out of her way when she passed by; but it was still a lesson
well learned. So she rooted through her closet until she found loose
khaki trousers and an oversized shirt in burgundy and deep blue, then
carried the clothes into the small square living room and dug a clean
pair of underwear out of the basket pushed against a wall. She pulled
scuffed brown boots with worn heels from under the big chair that was
almost identical to the one in Chao's office. These days she liked
clothes she could move in without pinching a breast or turn-ing an
ankle, that could be pushed up over her elbows or crumpled and stuffed
into a carrybag. She followed fashion but never caught up with it—now
who had first said that? Someone in the web: was it Bat, or maybe
Tiger? No, she didn't want to think about Tiger, his bright blood and
the shock on his face.

“Where's my other sock?”

Snow shrugged. Jackal began turning over
the chair cushions.

“Get another pair.”

“I want these, they go with my shirt.” A
part of her was surprised to find herself sounding so ordinary, as if
nothing much had happened, as if she had not yesterday taken a long
step closer to a dangerous edge.

“What's that on the bookshelf? No, the
other one.”

She put the two socks together just to
make sure they matched, and then dressed in a storm of flapping sleeves
and a boot that tried to get away and had to be chased across the room.
Snow stayed against a wall and watched in amusement as Jackal hunted it
down. The boot was dirty, but there was no time to polish it. Maybe no
one would notice. Ah, she remembered the fashion remark now: it was
Mist, in one of her look-down-her-nose moments. And what kind of a
stupid name is Mist, anyway, Jackal thought for the thousand-and-first
time. She was sure that Mist would end up in a public-relations job
that involved many dinners with competitively dressed people, while the
rest of her department did whatever actual work there might be. And
Mist would probably come to Jackal for favors, fixes, confident that
whatever she asked would be done.

And so it would be. Jackal sighed. Mist
was a web mate, and it didn't matter if she was also profoundly
irritating. “Say, do you think Mist is the most annoying person in the
whole world, or just this part of it?” she asked Snow as she pulled on
her second boot.

“I think Mist will be less annoying after
breakfast. Bring an apple.”

It was a good omen that they found seats
together on the bus. She really did feel a little better, as if she'd
sicked up some of the poison inside her along with the wine. She still
hated the vulnerability and the secrecy; it was almost unthinkable not
to share this with Snow, if no one else. But she couldn't risk making
Snow a target for Ko. If it came right down to it, she'd give up her
mother in a heartbeat to protect Snow. Oddly, the realization made her
feel more grounded than she had for a while. She knew what she had to
do. She had her priorities. She ate her apple and cautiously allowed
herself to feel a bit more cheerful.

Snow was somewhere in her own head,
doubtless thinking elegant, complex thoughts. Jackal nudged her with an
elbow. “Who's the smartest?” she asked, smacking the words around the
last bite of apple.

“This month, I think it's Bat.” Snow
smiled back. “But you're pretty smart.”

“Who's the most likely to succeed?” It was
a new question, and she could see the moment of surprise before Snow
answered, in a gentler voice, “You are, Jackal. Everyone knows that.”
Snow took the apple core out of Jackal's hand and dropped it carelessly
into her own pocket, and then she leaned in to kiss Jackal. “You'll be
a great Hope,” she said quietly. “The things you do will shape the
world. You are smart and stubborn and brave. Forget about Tiger. Oh,
don't look at me like that, I've seen how he rides you. He's an
asshole. You're the Hope. Now here's your stop. Go do Hope stuff and
I'll see you later.”

“You know,” Jackal said after a moment,
“you just astonish me. Bless you twice. Oh, hell,” she added as her
stop slid by. She scrambled out of her seat, calling to the driver to
wait, and by the time she'd collected herself out on the sidewalk, the
bus was purring away and she could only wave after it and hope that
Snow saw. If she could have put her heart on a stick, she would have
given it to Snow right there in the aisle. But no, she thought, I'll
need it if I'm going to do the right things, if I'm going to be a good
Hope. I can still be a good Hope. I just have to work a little harder
and be a little braver. And I can. I can.

Jackal was the youngest person by at least
ten years in Neill's workshop, the only one who didn't have to juggle a
full-time job schedule to keep up with classes. Everyone else was a
serious runner on the Ko management track, people chosen for perceived
long-distance stamina rather than sprinting ability. The company's
strategy, Jackal had come to understand, was to offer power to people
who were experienced enough to make quick decisions out of confidence
in their own reference points, rather than rashness or received wisdom.
Youth was almost never an advantage at Ko.

She remembered having this macroscopic
realization: it was the first time she had been able to articulate an
original perception about the company, about business strategy in
general, rather than parroting back the theories of her teachers. Khofi
Andabe had grinned with pleasure at their weekly review session. “Good
for you, Fraulein Schakal,” he said, leaning back far enough in his
chair to make it creak in distress. It was his game to name her in the
dozen languages that he knew—at their first meeting, when Jackal began
her training in earnest at the age of thirteen, he had leaned across
his office desk with his square face resting on his big fists and said,
“
Eh bien
, Jackal,” except that he
pronounced it
zhaKAL
. “Zhakal,” he
had said again. “An unexpected naming, to be sure.” Then he had smiled
and she had liked him. The years of working together had brought her
from liking to trust, and now Andabe was almost like a part of her own
web. His approval mattered; she enjoyed making him grin.