The Unincorporated Woman (10 page)

J.D. nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “She’s the woman who prepared Justin for his long sleep and then followed him into the future. She was found just as he disappeared, and she’s clearly capable, having made it this far. She’s the only other human being in history to have survived the Grand Collapse, and she did it while it was happening.” J.D. paused a beat. “And that’s the angle we have to push with the people. We’ll stress the heroic and the miraculous over and over again until they can’t tell the difference between the image and the individual.
She
is the new chosen one, here to lead.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t want this, Admiral,” began Sinclair. “Because truly, if there’s anyone in this room your crazy idea would work for, it’s me. But I just don’t see the people of the Alliance falling for an obvious stand-in.”

“Finally,” groused Mosh, “a voice of reason.”

J.D. ignored the outburst, looking straight at her commanding officer. “I agree with your assessment, sir. No one would expect her to pop out and hit the ground running. But we can work with that because of greater concern to the people is, as stated before, a figure of hope. Don’t you see? We can have our cake and eat it too. We can give them their hope, and give the fleet back its admiral. They’ll make that leap of faith, sir. Of that I’m sure.”

“But why should we?” insisted Sinclair. “Again, I’m not trying to get rid of you. Damsah knows I need you. But it seems pretty obvious, Janet, from the machinations of this meeting alone, you’d make a fine President. In some ways, with all due respect, better than Justin.”

“Maybe I would, sir. And I thank you for the compliment, undeserving as I think it may be. But we don’t need a ‘fine’ President right now, just a fine figurehead. However, what we do need is damned fine admiral. I keep on saying this, but for some reason, no one seems to be listening. So allow me to spell it out.” She rose from her seat and leaned over the table, placing the palms of her hands on its surface. “Trang is coming. You may be able to put that thought on your back burners, but I don’t have the luxury of putting it on mine. He’s coming, and I’ll need to beat him on the front lines in order to win this war. And yes, even with all the shit that’s gone down, we can still win this thing. But I must prepare, starting now—something I won’t be able to do strapped to the Presidential chair. What I can do from that chair is give hope. But guess what?” asked J.D., standing up, walking over, and placing one hand on the suspension unit. “So can she. I say we thaw this bitch out and prop her ass up so I can go win this fucking war.”

Only the silent hum of the forced air system could be heard as abject silence followed on her words. Eyes flittered back and forth as each person ruminated on the proposal and checked with one another for an indication of opinion.

“Okay,” a soft voice finally murmured.

J.D. nodded in relief.
That’s two
.

Everyone looked at Hildegard. She seemed a little flustered by the sudden attention but soldiered on. “Your argument is sound, Admiral, and I’m even prepared to back it up, but I must know how you plan on bringing her out.”

“Come again?” asked J.D.

“Well, quite frankly, the stats don’t bode well.” Hildegard looked down at her DijAssist. “Sandra, or whatever her real name is, froze herself with the onset of dementia during the Grand Collapse, presumably hoping to find a cure, a stable future, and in all likelihood, her boss—one very deceased Justin Cord. She’ll wake up millions of miles from the planet of her birth, and before she has a chance to pee will be told she’s to take on the ceremonial leadership of an interstellar alliance that’s in the process of losing a war.” She nodded respectfully to J.D. “Predictions of our imminent victory notwithstanding.”

J.D. returned the nod with a respectful, if somewhat caustic, glare.

“She’ll find herself inside a world she knows nothing of,” continued Hildegard, “and titular head to a people she has nothing in common with. Under the best of conditions, Admiral, a revival of this sort would prove challenging, to say the least. And we are clearly,” she said, looking around at the leftover accoutrements of the Fontaine Bleue, “not anywhere near the best of conditions.”

Back to one,
thought Janet ruefully.

A slight upward crease formed at the corners of Mosh’s mouth: a hound smelling blood. “Hildegard has a point, Janet. How do we bring this great ‘hope’ of yours up to speed without the proper facilities or even brain trust to do so? We may have the best fighting force in the system, but sadly the best and brightest minds with regards to this specialty happen to be on the other side of the line.”

J.D. was momentarily stymied, having given no thought whatsoever to that aspect of her plan.

“I think I may be able help with that,” chimed in Kirk with a bemused half grin. Janet’s eyes shifted uneasily over to him. Hating that she’d been unprepared for the question. Hating even more that she’d owe Kirk … but only
if
he could pull it off.

“Don’t look so surprised, Janet. I’m not enamored of you any more than you are of me. Nor, Damsah knows, would your taking the Presidency have made my life any easier. Still, up until this meeting, I too had been convinced that you were the only one capable of replacing Justin Cord as President. However, your argument is compelling and while Hildegard’s point is well taken, it’s not insurmountable.” He paused, knowing full well that Mosh wouldn’t ask for him to continue and that the others would wait. J.D. knew exactly the game Kirk was playing. He wanted her to ask. And so, seeing that no one else would, she did.

“Please go on, Kirk. We’re all ears.”

Kirk bent his head respectfully. “We have a dark operation that I’d prepared for various upper-echelon UHF officials. Dr. Thaddeus Gillette was one of them. In his particular case, it involved removing him and then making it appear as if he’d been an Alliance operative all along, nothing conclusive, but enough to cast doubt on all his work and associates. Now seems as good a time as any to implement it.”

“Downsides?” asked Sinclair.

“It would mean losing an escape route out of the Core that so far appears to have gone undetected. Also, we’d be losing the services of three, maybe four well-placed operatives. Small price to pay, given what’s at stake.”

“Time frame?” demanded Sinclair, more as an order than as a query.

Kirk folded his arms, leaned back, and smiled like the cat who’d caught the canary. “I should be able to have the good doctor here in twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

Cyrus Anjou’s face reddened and a small bulge of a vein could be seen forming on the right side of his temple. “If,” he spat in Kirk’s direction, “you can just wave your magic wand and bring the solar system’s premier reanimation psychologist to Ceres
in a day,
how come you couldn’t protect the President!”

Kirk leaned forward, both hands now on the table, and glared back at Cyrus. “I protected him for five years, you Jovian twit. But I couldn’t protect the sanctimonious fool from himself. I
told him
not to go to Nerid, to send a forward team. But no, he insisted on going himself!”

“You are insulting our President,” Cyrus shouted, standing up so quickly, his chair sailed back against the wall in the one-sixth gravity. Kirk stood up too, meeting the challenge. Before anyone else could react, Padamir jumped up and into the fray. He quickly put his hand on his friend’s shoulder to calm him.

“Only by telling the truth, Cyrus. Justin should not have gone. He did so against all advice, and that is no one’s fault but his own.” Padamir gave Cyrus his own chair, and as he went to get the now discarded one, he kept talking to bring the conversation away from its tender spot. “I do not doubt that you can do as you say, Kirk. If you tell me that Thaddeus Gillette will be here in a day and a half, I will believe you. But I do not see how that does us any good.” He brought the chair to his spot and sat down, inviting Kirk and Cyrus to do the same. They did so reluctantly. “Why would he bother to help us? After all, we’ll have just kidnapped him.”

“I may be able to help with that,” offered J.D.

“This is nuts,” fumed Mosh. “Maybe he will; maybe he won’t. They want hope. They don’t want hope. Maybe she’ll pop out and be fine; maybe she’ll be a raging lunatic. Forget maybe. Admiral Black is here now and has clearly had a palpable effect on bringing order back to the Alliance—as if her preventing yesterday’s near religious riot weren’t an indication. Why are we messing around with so many what if’s and maybe’s,” he growled, pointing to J.D., “when we have what we need right here, right now? We all need to grow a pair, and Janet, you need to give up this charade and prepare for your inauguration. It’s as simple as that.”

“Whether this could work or not,” interjected Cyrus, having recently regained his composure, “it seems to me that Justin would want this Sandra O’Toole to have the best chance at a successful revival. Why don’t we see if Kirk can get Dr. Gillette to us, and then we can see if he’ll help us? If not, then we inaugurate Admiral Black and, at worst, lose only a day or two.”

The heads around the table slowly nodded; eventually even Mosh reluctantly agreed, though he was the last. With that, the meeting broke up. Kirk waited a few moments more, as Janet Delgado Black had sent him a private message requesting that he remain.

When they were alone and J.D. was confident that the room was secure, she spoke.

“You’d better deliver, Kirk.”

“Why,” he sniffed, “because you don’t want to be in that office any more than I want you there? We’ve already been over that.”

“No, Kirk, because whether you succeed or not, in two days, I’m waking the bitch up.”

4 The Doctor Is Out

Martian Revival and Reintegration Facility, Barsoom, Mars

Lisa Herman looked up at her selection in the cafeteria. She enjoyed eating in the main hall with the other patients, even though she’d once been one of them. Now cured of her post-traumatic stress disorder, she’d risen to the vaunted rank of assistant to the system-famous Dr. Neela Harper. The strange truth was that over time, it almost seemed as if Dr. Harper had become an assistant to her. In a little under a year, Lisa had gone from simple filing and appointment work to acquiring an emergency license in military revival techniques. It didn’t make her a doctor nor did it allow her to work on particularly complex cases, but she’d become one of the most effective group leaders in the compound and had more practical experience with the reintegration of traumatized spacers than almost anyone around. That, and Dr. Harper’s insistence that Lisa was needed at the hospital more than anywhere else, was what had kept Lisa’s repeated requests for transfer back to combat duty from being accepted. And even though she was considered part of the staff, she still thought of herself as a spacer first and former patient second, which is probably why she was so good at helping the spacers under her care.

Today Lisa was waiting her turn at the processing slot and using her DijAssist to review the ingredients on the day’s menu. It was a little quirk, certainly in an era when most trusted that even if they ate badly, medical science could compensate for the indiscretion, but it was a quirk Lisa felt defined her better and so she continued the habit, unabashed by the snickering of her peers. Yet even with her ritual observance, she almost missed the oddity.

The veggie burrito she’d finally settled on was using guacamole made with lymon, an ingredient she’d never heard of. While she was perturbed that a taste she’d gotten used to might now have a slightly different texture or flavor, it intrigued her nonetheless. She ordered the burrito special including soup and salad, took her plate, and found a seat in the cafeteria. She lifted the burrito to her mouth and stopped before taking a bite. A peculiar sensation had caught hold of her. It was something about that ingredient, that lymon. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but the more she thought about it, the more subsumed she became. It was an odd sensation, almost erotic, in how good, how right it felt to say that word, “lymon,” over and over again in her head. The repetition was leading to something—to what, she didn’t know, only that she must repeat it in her mind until that something arrived. And then it did.

Wide-eyed, she stared out into the cafeteria, mouth slightly ajar, burrito still held firmly. To anyone watching, her mannerism might have indicated she’d forgotten what she was doing or conversely just remembered some arcane task she’d need to complete. What they would never guess was that Lisa Herman was no longer in the cafeteria, that she’d been replaced by another … the
other
within her. The
other
had never really gone away, but with a combination of meditation and hypnotherapy had been effectively suppressed. But now the
other
was waking up. The
other
took a bite of the burrito. It was good. She continued to eat. She was starving. Over the course of her meal, between the soup and the salad, the last vestiges of Lisa Herman finally disappeared. The
other
knew everything about Lisa and would act in no overt way differently from Lisa. But this
other
also knew she had a far more important task to complete, yet rather annoyingly had yet to determine exactly what that was.

After lunch, the
other
complained of a headache to her colleagues and arranged for someone to take her place leading that afternoon’s therapy session. She then headed over to the infirmary. Once there, a helpful medic gave her a shot of aspirin and suggested she take the rest of the afternoon off. He also placed a small data crystal into her palm and used his hand to gently close her fingers around it. She gave him a curious look, but his warm smile and strangely soothing voice reassured her. He further suggested she give him a call later that day.
He has a nice smile,
thought the
other,
and so decided then and there to take him up on the offer. He pointed her in the direction of a local café and she went, like a leaf pulled along a stream by an unseen eddy, without protest. Once at the café, the
other
ordered a Turkish coffee and found a private booth in which to view the contents of the crystal. To her surprise, the message—displayed for less than a second—consisted of only three words:
START SMART GRAB
. As had happened earlier, she puzzled over the words, once again mesmerized. And then for the second time in as many hours, she was struck by a clarity of purpose. Only this time, she knew exactly what she was supposed to do. The patients were no longer her concern—the doctor was.