Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets (5 page)

Mina and Miko found two seats with a bit of
distance. All the other kids had family along. A
redheaded—copper-haired, really—girl sat in near silence next to
her mother. The girl chewed nervously on her nails every time her
mother looked back down into her magazine. Mina matched a second
family to a van with Montana license plates near where they'd
parked. She figured she could be wrong, but word around Seattle
always had it that you could tell the country kids and people who'd
had the long trips to get there. They were the ones who dressed
really nicely for the day at the center. All the people from close
enough to have made a few trips by the center supposedly knew to
dress as comfortably as possible, because everyone was going to be
there a while. The big, muscular boy and his parents were all a lot
more tanned than most of the locals managed to get anyway.

The last group were providing most of the
noise in the place. While the other families talked quietly, a
woman in a University of Oregon sweatshirt worked hard to run herd
on a small, short-haired blond boy, who wanted to explore
everything. Climbing and crawling on and amidst chairs and side
tables, he prompted his mother to drag him back to her immediate
presence every few minutes. A girl who Mina figured was probably
the boy's twin sister sat quietly, clutching a stuffed duck in
Oregon's jungle green and tangerine yellow. Their older brother was
immersed in a biology textbook while waiting, either just that
bored, or engaged with the scholarly subject above and beyond
chipped information. The family's father showed the signs of a long
drive; he slid forward in his chair, cat napping while they waited
for their son to be called.

Mina scanned every chart and list within
reading distance, then scanned over the other people waiting,
wondering why they were here. Some were harder to guess than
others. She started running through a few imagined scenarios in her
head, filling in details with speculation and context clues. Miko
was watching and knew Mina far too well. There was a comm text.
“
What's the verdict?
”

“Okay, the Oregon Kid, I'm almost
positive,”
Mina sent back.
“Probably some kind of university
research posting
.” If there was a retirement or death within
staff at a major research facility, it would make sense they'd be
trying to fill it quickly.

“Big guy in his rumpled Sunday's
Best?
”

“Don't know about Montana Kid. Montana Dad
may be a trucker. Tan darker on one elbow. Arm out of window a lot?
Still doesn't mean anything. Montana Kid may be luckier than
I.
”

Aptitudes ran in families often enough that
it wasn't unusual for kids to follow similar careers, but it was
hardly universal. Still, Mina could imagine reasons why more
transport workers might be needed in a hurry.

“Redhead?
”

“I've got nothing
.”

The copper-haired girl looked like an awful
lot of the girls in Mina's class. T-shirt and jeans, painted nails
with rough edges from the nervous habit, long hair kept in a
braid—nothing that readily gave a lot away. She fidgeted in
silence.

'Skick!' went the sound of another bitten
nail, and the mother glanced up from her magazine sternly. The girl
tried to sit on her hands in reaction. Yes, there was some tension
between them. Mina found her attention drawn to the mother's nails.
Brightly painted, definitely a good sign she didn't do anything
that was going to scuff them up. On the other hand, the woman kept
them trimmed short, perhaps for typing, or maybe playing piano or
something, Mina reminded herself, with a glance aside to Miko's
nails, short since those lessons started at age eight. Still, she
could see the woman as a secretary—about the right amount of makeup
and general sense of professional style in evidence for someone
used to dealing with people, used to a steady 9-to-5 career. Mina
guessed that perhaps the daughter was going into something
drastically different, more socially isolated or unpredictable, and
the woman didn't entirely approve. Perhaps it was even that this
was a consultation, and the girl didn't even know precisely what
she'd be doing yet. Good reason to be nervous there as well.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting
there when a small voice asked, “How long's it take to make
somebody a prob'ly-lab-monkey?” The tiny blonde girl wasn't talking
to Mina. With her family preoccupied, she was addressing Miko with
earnest concern.

“Well,” Miko replied cheerfully, “It used to
take years and years.” Then, soothingly, as the girl's eyes widened
in distress, she added, “But that was a long time ago. If this is
his day, he'll know all about labs by bedtime.”

“Oh.”

Mina noted the correct call just a little
smugly. There were no prizes, of course; it was just a habit. And
better, maybe, than turning those musings on what would happen to
the girl who was wearing Danskins™, but clearly didn't have the
legs to be a professional ballerina.

The probably-lab-monkey got called in first.
He hadn't been gone for a minute when the family decided to collect
the littler ones and go find some breakfast, or maybe it was lunch.
The center felt immeasurably bigger and more empty the second
they'd left.

Not long after, the nurse called, “Mina
Teresa Cortez.”

“Excuse me,” Mina said, surprised. “Did you
say Mina Teresa Cortez?” After all, she'd arrived last, so she
expected to be called last. The nurse verified that it was her turn
and that Miko wasn't going to be permitted back with her. The nurse
and desk attendant both made a note of making sure security had
Miko's name and license plate though so she could get back to the
building and the waiting area at any point she wanted, if she
decided to leave the chipping center.

“Thanks,” said Miko as she turned on her ear
buds to listen to music instead.

The nurse led Mina back through a maze of
hallways. She'd always had a fair sense of direction, which helped
with her deliveries, but even so, she was lost within the first two
minutes. The nurse navigated the center's labyrinthine ways with
practiced—and probably chipped—ease, eventually showing Mina to a
sterile room, this one white, in contrast to the steel gray and
various shades of beige in the rest of the center. There was a
padded table, a couple of countertops, and two chairs. An open
metal secure box rested on the examining table.

“Please go ahead and get changed into a robe.
Your clothes can go into that safebox there. Lock it up when you're
done and leave it on the countertop. You'll get everything back
when we check you out. Did you have any questions?”

“Wait ... so I'm actually being chipped? I
thought this was just a consultation or something.”

“Oh dear,” the nurse answered, checking her
paperwork. “Chipping Date: Mina Teresa Cortez. I can understand
being nervous, honey, but it's not that big a deal. We'll have you
out and walking by tonight.”

Chapter
Five

“No, no ... I'm not nervous. I know all that.
I just ... I'm going to be working at a flower shop. It's not like
... well, not like a Week Two thing.”

The Nurse shrugged. “This is the date we were
given. If you'd like us to call your family, we can do that, but
you're going to be in isolation through the surgery and a few
follow ups. Still, if you thought it was a consultation, they
should probably know. They'll want to be here when you're
done.”

Mina bit back the comment that they'd
probably want to know when she'd be ready to go back to work first.
“Okay, yeah, give them a call. Just let them know it's no big deal
for now. They don't need to be here. My friend can give me a lift
back home.”

“Okay, I'll let them know. You're going to
want to take it really easy for a few days. The procedure is
minimally invasive, but we're still attaching something to your
spine. It's—”

“Thank you,” Mina interrupted, with a small
smile. “I'm okay, really.” She was sure, despite all the classes,
some kids would want reassurance up til the last minute. Now that
she was here, Mina just wanted to get on to the point she wouldn't
need to be here any longer.

Once the nurse left, Mina quickly changed
into the too-brief hospital gown. She managed to tie it reasonably
well, found a pair of linen-white slippers, then shut her clothes
up in the box and went to peek out of the room. “Okay, I'm ready,”
she called.

The nurse returned, leading her through a few
more empty, maze-like, hallways and eventually to a surgical room.
She met briefly with the two doctors, then the handful of
additional assistants and nurses. They went through the expected
battery of explanations, whether she needed them or not.

“Some people process certain kinds of
knowledge better than others. Chips don't reprogram anyone,” the
doctor explained.

“—
they just transmit electrical
impulses, which translate into a certain kind of data, or encourage
a certain kind of action,” Mina said. “I promise I wasn't one of
the ones sleeping in class.”

“And you know that there's no guarantees, but
the risk of chip rejection or complications has dropped to being
almost negligible.”

“As long as you follow proper processes and
don't try and mess with your chip or try and get anything added to
it,” Mina continued. “I know. Most of the horror stories are at
least a couple generations old, or turned out to be Black Market
chips.”

Mina was given another chance to ask
questions, then was helped onto the padded metal table, face down.
She put her face through the small hole that would let her breathe
easily while undergoing surgery. They assured her the anesthesia
would help her sleep through the process and not feel a thing.

She felt the shot, then continued to hear
voices for a little bit, which became increasingly distant as the
medicine kicked in. Her last impressions were of marks being made
on her upper back and neck with a marker while the surgical crew
talked. Then, though Mina still wasn't ready to wake up a florist,
everything went dark.

A taste like chewing on tinfoil and a slight
burning sensation somewhere in her nasal cavity woke Mina. She
registered that much, felt a rush of adrenaline, and before she
picked up anything else of her surroundings, she rolled off of the
table. She landed in a crouch, feeling the slight constriction of
sweatpants around her legs. Before she could ponder how she'd
gotten a change of clothes, or why she was behind a fixed table
with drawers rather than an operating table, she heard a smack of
hard plastic on the tabletop where she'd been laying a split second
before.

The table wouldn't last as a hiding place for
long, but she had moved across the way from her potential attacker,
giving her a moment. At first, she detected chaotic movement.
Something in her brain raced through assessing her situation, and
she smelled three others in the room—two sets of actual movement,
coming around the desk from opposite sides. At least a hint of
synth-skin, so probably some cybernetics somewhere.

Two masked figures came into view, rounding
each side of the desk. Despite the clear threat, though she wasn't
sure why, Mina's initial adrenaline-laced panic started to
fade.

She tensed, head snapping forward, watching
both out of her peripheral vision. As they committed themselves to
trying to corner Mina, her crouch gave her the perfect start for a
spring upward, hands planting on the tabletop, turning into a
smooth somersault to the other side of it and onto her feet.

That was when the surreality of being
attacked got even more surreal. Not from the somersault—Mina could
do a somersault. That was fine. What was surreal was the way her
feet shifted into one of Miko's aikido stances. She wasn't clumsily
copying what she'd seen. She was falling naturally into something
she'd never actually done in her life. She felt a bit like a
character in one of Scott's video games, like her motions weren't
entirely under her control, but whoever had the controller was
doing just fine

As one of the masked men reversed field,
coming back around, she stepped into him. He brought the hard
plastic baton up into an attack posture. Mina continued her
momentum forward, using the heavy desk as a barrier to keep the
fight one on one. She closed the distance before he could get any
momentum behind the swing, one hand coming up to parry the attack
at his forearm instead of risking blocking the baton with her bare
arm. Her other hand lashed out with an open palm strike to his
solar plexus. There was a muffled thump on impact, her brain
registering some kind of light body armor under his shirt that kept
the blow from knocking the wind out of him.

Already adjusting his position, he tried for
a sapping blow under her chin. She ducked her head back and to the
side even as she registered what he was doing, the man's hand
coming up a millimeter from striking. Her dodge left her in better
position to follow up than her attacker. She let her momentum carry
her into a full spin, dropping into a low sweep kick. Her attacker
jumped over it, but his landing gave her a split second free of his
press. She pushed upward again, not even looking back, just
remembering where the desk was to brace herself properly, turning
her backwards leap into a roll across the desktop, coming up on her
feet atop the desk.

From her position on high ground, a new
flurry of motion caught her attention in time to let her snap a leg
out, avoiding the attack to her shin, stepping down on the baton.
Her defense was jarring enough that the attacker lost hold of the
baton under Mina's foot. She hooked her toes under the baton,
kicking it up into the air and catching it. Now armed, she resumed
her stance, trying to assess both attackers.