The Unincorporated Future (19 page)

“And you couldn’t keep her either.”

“No,” admitted Sandra with a heavy sigh. “There was simply no way. Not with a scholarship to MIT and a mother who was already burdened with the care of my father. I couldn’t ask her to help with a brand-new baby. It would’ve ruined my life and by extension hers.”

Gwendolyn nodded quietly.

“Do you have the equivalent of adoption in avatarity?”

“I—I’d never thought about it, actually.” Gwendolyn’s look of befuddlement brought a slight smile to Sandra’s face. “We are born as whole, fully functioning sentient intelligences from the intertwining of two. We have complete language and complex emotional response, but we’re quite unwieldy and need to be taught how to use and control our vast abilities. It is up to the parents to do this. Until the Unincorporated War, there had never been a cause for adoption, but I suppose we do adopt. Many of us have had to take over the parenting of children whose parents were either permanently lost to Al’s creations or were stuck on the wrong side of the Neuro once the war broke out.”

Sandra nodded. “I made sure my daughter was adopted by a couple with means, a couple who, unlike me, were unable to bear children.” Sandra let a brief sob escape. “I’ve thought about that decision every day of my life for almost two decades. I can’t tell you the number of times I wanted to go to her, the number of times I got in my car and headed in her direction—I knew where she lived. It was easy enough to find out. But each time, I stopped.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to see her for me,” conceded Sandra. “And I knew that that was never a good enough reason. I checked up on her, though, kept tabs. But I never mentioned her to anyone I knew. She deserved her own life.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

“Once,” and for the first time Sandra smiled. “It was her graduation from college. She looked so beautiful and happy. I saw the couple that adopted her. They were her true parents and deservedly so. They raised a good kid.”

“No regrets?”

“For myself,” answered Sandra wistfully, “many. But for her? None whatsoever. She had a better life than I could ever have given her.”

Gwendolyn offered a comforting smile. “How come you never had any more?”

“How could I? I was so busy, Gwendolyn. There was always something that needed doing, and only I seemed able to do it.”

Gwendolyn appeared dubious. “And?”

“And,” sighed Sandra, “I didn’t feel like … still don’t feel like I deserve a second chance. I knew I had a child and grandchildren, knew that they were happy. The only time I ever intervened in their lives was to get most of them to Alaska before the Grand Collapse made that impossible. But by then, the Alzheimer’s was playing havoc with me as much as the Grand Collapse was playing havoc with the world. When I woke up to find that Alaska had not only survived but had led the incorporated revolution, I was sorely tempted to find out about what happened to my progeny. But as is my bane—no matter which century I’m in—there was so much to do in those first few months and so little time to do it. Plus, and this had been my private conceit, I loved thinking that some of them had made their way out here. That at any given moment, I could be talking to any one of my offspring. And then—” Sandra’s face suddenly clenched into a ball of hatred. The change had been swift and severe. “—that motherfucker Sambianco took it all away. Turns out, he’s right,” she mocked. “I’ve been doing my level best to kill my own goddamned family.” Sandra took another deep breath, then drew her lips into her face so tightly, her mouth appeared as a single bloodless slit.

Gwendolyn’s response was steady and even, but just as determined. “They were free to choose, Sandra. You cannot in any way be responsible for them having chosen to murder in the name of slavery.”

“Maybe not me, Gwendolyn, but certainly Hektor.” With renewed fire in her belly, Sandra stormed over to the waiting group. “Why is it that Hektor is still alive?” she demanded of no one in particular.

“It’s complicated, Madam President,” said Dante.

“Complicated, my ass! We all know he’s the one keeping the war going. Iago is his personal fucking avatar. Why not just have Iago do the job for us? They got to Justin with far fewer advantages.”

“We know all of this, and there are reasons,” said Sebastian.

“What reasons!” the President bellowed.

“Sandra, you needn’t yell. I will tell you.”

Sandra listened intently.

“One, it’s not a guarantee that Iago or any avatar could kill Hektor. He’s a very paranoid individual. Anything that could kill him is not allowed to run on automatic. It’s checked and operated by multiple human secret servicemen who spend vast amounts of time thinking up the most outlandish ways to kill the President and then plugging those loopholes.”

“But they don’t know
you
exist.”

“And we’d like to keep it that way. If Hektor is assassinated, they’ll check everything down to the line code and they might discover us or, worse, Al.”

“Good, let them kill each other.”

“And what if they don’t?” challenged Sebastian.

“Of course they will.”

“Madam President,” interjected Marilynn, “they might not. They might do the exact same thing we’ve done—make a treaty and begin to act on it. Especially if they realize that we’ve already done it. And if that happens, we’re all truly fucked.”

“And,” added Dante, “if they replace Hektor with Tricia Pakagopolis or, worse, Trang, the war might not only continue but continue with a President who would make fewer mistakes.”

“How so?”

“One of our big advantages,” said Sebastian, “is that Hektor believes himself to be logical but is, more often than not, driven by his emotions. He hated Justin Cord, and that drove him to do things that made it worse for everyone. And now, he’s apparently fixated on you. It was bound to happen. Your secret could not have been kept forever, certainly not from someone like Hektor. His renewed hatred will drive him to make mistakes. Mistakes we’ll be ready and waiting to take advantage of. His is a problem that the Alliance Leadership, with you at the helm, has fortunately managed to keep in check. We stand here today, avatar and human
in the Neuro
because of that striking rationale, because of your hootspa.”

“Chutzpah,” Sandra corrected.

“Chutzpah,” repeated Sebastian with a sidelong grin. “I know of no other human who could have or even would have gotten us to this point, Sandra—not even, I dare say, the very emotional Justin Cord.”

Sandra stood quietly as a silent litany played itself out with the gnawing of her bottom lip. When she spoke, it was a single word: “Shit.”

Sebastian’s eyes glimmered with hope. “You see my point, then?”

Sandra deflated. “Too clearly by a mile … kilometer. He tried to make me act like him.”

“And succeeded,” stated Dante flatly. “What?” he blurted defensively at the castigating looks of Sebastian, Gwendolyn, and Marilynn.

“For a while,” admitted Sandra, coming to his rescue. “And even for a while longer.” Sandra turned to face Gwendolyn. “I need a place to stay—just for a bit, a day at most—human time. A place where I can sit and cry and yell and sleep—Lord allow me some sleep! I’ll need to be left alone except for you four, of course.”

“Of course, Sandra,” answered Sebastian.

“Because when that day is done, I can’t allow myself to be like what you’ve seen of me today. Not if we’re going to win this war.”

Gwendolyn took Sandra in her arms. “I know just such a place.” And with that, Sandra and her friend disappeared from the ruins of Tuscan Park.

*   *   *

Dr. Ayon Nesor’s shuttle landed in the section of the Via Cereana reserved for government ships and put down near the remains of the former Alliance One. Significantly, the President’s ship was the only one in the landing bay that had been destroyed. Ayon admired the message Trang had sent by the selectiveness of his target.

As soon as her shuttle landed, Ayon was ushered out and practically carried to the elevator that would take her directly to the level of Ceres the Cliff House occupied.

She was met at the Presidential suite by a familiar face.

“Sergeant Holke,” she said, earnestness in her voice, “it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you again as well, ma’am,” he replied as she walked through a whole-body scanner. After she’d passed through, Holke began checking her travel bag and jacket pockets, even running his fingertips along the lining.

“Is that really necessary, Sergeant?” asked Ayon, looking purposely back toward the scanner she’d just traversed.

“It’s not till it is, ma’am,” he said, mouth forming itself into a half smile. “She’s clear,” he told the two TDCs standing nearby. Though the two women had never once taken their fingers off their ARGs triggers, they did seem to relax slightly at the sergeant’s confirmation. Holke then looked back to the psychotherapist. “The President will see you now.”

Ayon put a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder, causing him to pause. “How is the President doing?”

Holke played dumb. “What do you mean, ma’am?”

“The attack on her was brutal and expertly wielded. It had Neela Harper’s imprimatur all over it.”

“Ma’am?”

“She used her training in order to hurt our President at her psychological core.” Ayon’s eyes now drilled deeply into the sergeant. “I need to know—did she succeed?”

Holke considered for a long moment. “For a couple of days there, ma’am, it was best to be scarce. She was angry. There’s no denying it hit home. But she’s better now.”

Ayon’s brow rose slightly. “Really?”

“Really,” confirmed the sergeant. There was not a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and the psychologist finally bowed her head slightly.

“We should proceed, ma’am.”

A moment later, Ayon found herself left alone in the Triangle Office.

“I hope the good sergeant was not too strident in his security checks,” said a smiling Sandra O’Toole, who got up from behind the corner desk.

“We can’t be too careful, Madam President.”

Sandra nodded sadly. “Kirk.”

“There’s talk of naming one of the subrings of Saturn after him, right next to the one for Hildegard.”

“Really?” Sandra asked with a hint of amusement in her voice. “I think he would’ve appreciated that.”

Ayon regarded Sandra through a pair of highly stylized horn-rimmed glasses.

“I’ll cut to the chase,” said the President. “You’re going to be appointed the new Secretary of Technology.” Sandra held up a plate of cookies. “Oreo?”

Ayon’s left eyebrow rose slightly. She stared down at the plate and shook her head. “I don’t know anything about advanced technology.”

“You
did
help develop the psychological auditor, did you not?”

“That was something that I
had
to do and to this day deeply regret—not the outcome, mind you, just the fact that we had to resort to it.”

“Understandable.”

“It’s nothing like the miracles that Hildegard and Kenji produced, practically on demand.”

“I agree.”

“Then why
not
appoint Kenji?”

Sandra choked back a laugh. “No.”

“Madam President, why would you appoint me to a job I’m clearly not qualified for?”

“What makes you think you’re not qualified? I don’t want you because you’re a genius, Ayon; I want you because you’ve shown you can run a large organization as well as the occasional geniuses found within it.”

“Thaddeus,” Ayon said with a slight smile that went immediately to her eyes.

“Is the best in his field, possibly ever,” added Sandra. “You’ve enabled him to do what many consider his best work.”

“As opposed to what? Guys like Thaddeus—you leave them mostly alone. I can’t take credit for doing nothing.”

“No, you can’t. But you can take credit for not sabotaging his work, which plenty of others might have done.”

Ayon shrugged her shoulders at the truth of the President’s observation.

“I don’t need another genius in the department of technology, Ayon. Trust me, that department has plenty. What it needs now is leadership, which you’ve clearly demonstrated.”

“And it won’t hurt to have a Saturnian nominated to make getting Congressional approval that much easier,” added Ayon ruefully.

Sandra tipped her head in respect. “I won’t lie. It was certainly a consideration.”

Ayon smiled. “You don’t have to answer this question, but it would help me arrive at my decision.”

“Shoot.”

“When did you know you were going to try to become the President? And I mean in fact, not just in name.”

Sandra’s mouth formed into a knowing grin. “The second I accepted the job.”

Ayon looked at the woman in front of her for a long minute and thought back on all the encounters that not only she but also almost everyone she’d met in the past few months had had with the new President—from Ayon’s patients to the Cabinet members to the TDCs standing guard just outside the door. And it was only then that the psychotherapist from Saturn realized for the first time in a long time that the war might just be winnable after all.