Blackfish City(72)

“That’s not true,” Go said, and her voice was harsh, but the harshness was shallow and choppy. “I had more to do with how you turned out than you think. I’ve been far more present in your life than you could guess. Nudging you; sculpting you. I’ve been taking care of you all this time. And Kaev, too, whether you believe it or not. Think it was easy, keeping him from killing himself, accidentally or on purpose, for a decade or two? I always had someone close to him, a friend of his who was in my pocket or a grid grunt assigned to keep an eye on him, to get him out of any situations that could have been dangerous. And there were dozens. Just like I made sure you got that slide messenger job. And paid off Registration four or five times a year, so they wouldn’t dig too deep at your agency.”

“I believe that,” Soq said, reining in the anger, because too much was happening, too much was at stake, time was too short—and Soq could see that this, too, could have come from Go. “But I’m not talking to you like this because I think you’d hesitate to kill me because I’m your kid.”

One of Go’s exquisite eyebrows rose.

A shout from above. The ship was in position at the base of the Cabinet.

Soq tapped a final sequence on their screen and handed it to Go. “I’m talking to you like this because I have something I know you would be very, very eager to get your hands on. And I have some conditions before I consider giving it to you.”





Ankit


Protective Custody felt like a totally different Cabinet. The curving walls made her feel embraced, enfolded, protected. Light panels pulsed in pleasant colors. Huge screens showed waterfalls, horses, slow-motion waves breaking on beautiful beaches.

Fyodorovna, on the other hand, was agitated. Her eyes blinked and twitched; her hand was tight on Ankit’s. She was looking for the Victorian asylum horrors, the screaming and the laughter, the gibbering lunatics finger-painting masterpieces in shit on the walls, the rusty torture devices masquerading as therapeutic tools.

“They’re at the spot now” came Soq’s voice through her implant. “Masaaraq will dive soon. Could take five minutes, could take an hour. Or more.”

Ankit tapped her tongue to her palate to acknowledge. A sky-blue arrow slithered along the floor, moving at precisely the same pace as they did, just the slightest bit ahead. It seemed to flicker and twitch, a tiny carefully programmed bit of animation intended to make it seem alive, trustworthy, and Ankit rolled her eyes—but almost immediately after that she saw Fyodorovna smile faintly, looking down at it, making Ankit feel even more impressed and safe in the hands of the kind and wise machines that ran the Cabinet. And all of Qaanaaq, really.

A sudden lurch caused her to stop, grasp her chest.

“Are you okay?” Fyodorovna asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “sorry. I just—”

No big deal, she thought. The monkey that I’m now nanobonded to is climbing this building, that’s all. So it feels like I’m swinging through space. Like gravity just comes and goes.

A door opened, and a nurse came out. He smiled, recognizing Fyodorovna, and saluted. She gave an impressive slow nod, every inch the monarch. Delusional even in her despair. Ankit caught a glimpse of the room he’d left—the bookshelf, the window, the curtain fluttering in the breeze from the heating vent.

She wondered if Martin Podlove was in here somewhere, and decided she doubted it. He was on the attack, in temporary sociopath mode, and he’d want to be in the thick of it. He’d have his own protection, people he paid for, people he’d have had on retainer for ages without ever once needing to call on, whom he’d trust a lot more.

And he wouldn’t want to chance a run-in with the woman he put here so long ago.

The blue arrow curled around on itself, became a circle. Rotating swiftly; the universal signal for Wait just a second. A door opened where there had been only wall.

“Hello,” said a stout staffer who wore the badges of both Safety and Health. “Body scans.”

Ankit raised her arms—the instinctive, familiar posture of someone prepared to be scanned or crucified—but Fyodorovna did not budge.

“I fail to see how this is necessary,” she said.

“Rules of the ward,” the Safety woman said. “Everybody gets scanned. No screens, no trackers, implants sealed.”

Implants sealed? Ankit felt panic rise. She stammered “I—” but the woman had already touched the wand to her jaw. The tingle told her the pulse had been successful, her implant would be bricked until she could get a revival pulse.

“Welcome,” the woman said, and gestured for Ankit to enter.

This was a problem. Without the implant Soq couldn’t find her, couldn’t talk to her. Couldn’t relay her location to Kaev and Masaaraq before the building killed internal comms. Ankit’s hands dampened. The fear again.

Their plan was fucked. They were fucked.

The nurse waited wordlessly. After less than a minute, Fyodorovna complied meekly. The blue circle became an arrow again and walked them the rest of the way.

Fyodorovna’s room was astonishing. A salvaged-wood floor, shiny with age and use, something that could have spent a century in a Paris bistro. An earthenware pitcher on a squat dark hutch beneath the window.

“Here we are,” she said, and Fyodorovna startled her with a sudden fierce embrace.