Only Human (Themis Files, #3)(14)

—Home! I just wanna go home!





FILE NO. 2116


INTERVIEW BETWEEN MAJOR KATHERINE LEBEDEV, RUSSIAN MAIN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (GRU), AND VINCENT COUTURE

Location: GRU building, Saint Petersburg, Russia —I’ve been nice to you, Vincent, haven’t I?

—What’s that supposed to mean?

—It means it’s time for you to be nice to me. I’m trying really hard to keep things civil here, but there’s a lot happening. Like, a lot.

—Like what?

—Oh, I don’t wanna bore you with my day. It’s just your usual brink-of-war political nonsense. I’ll tell you this, though. I’m a major. Information goes through a lot of hands before it gets to me, and at every step, people lose a bit of their manners. Ambassadors meet, they have some food, a bit of wine, maybe some caviar if they really wanna threaten each other. Generals meet over coffee and croissants. Colonels will skip the croissants. By the time information gets to me, it doesn’t come with anything to eat or drink. They also lose all the remotely positive things along the way. I just get a manila folder filled with negativity. Well, today, that folder is the size of a phone book. Remember the Twinkie in Ghostbusters? Well, like that, but in a manila folder, so now would be a really good time to start talking.

—What will you do to me if I don’t?

—I’m not gonna do anything to you, Vincent. It makes me queasy when I break a nail. I’m afraid of spiders…I am! I hate those little legs. The worst are the ones with long, long legs and nothing but a little beige ball in the middle. Ahhh! Anyway, can you picture me with pliers and a blowtorch? I hope you can’t. But I don’t run this place, Vincent. Soon enough, if I don’t give my boss what he wants, it’ll be someone else asking you questions. Trust me, you don’t want to talk to that someone else. I don’t want you to either because that’ll mean I failed, and that doesn’t go well in this place. Nooooo. Not well at all. So what do you say? Do you wanna help me? I have cookies!

—What do you want to know?

—Everything! Jesus, Vincent! I wanna know everything! I wanna know how to beat the Americans. I wanna know how Themis can disable their robot. I wanna know if the aliens are coming back! I wanna know if we should be preparing for a war and against whom. People are afraid, Vincent. You show up out of nowhere after nine years, they don’t know what it means. I don’t know.

—The Ekt are not coming back.

—How can you be sure?

—I suppose I can’t. I’m telling you that they don’t mean us any harm, and that based on what I know, they’re not coming back to Earth. But you’re right, I can’t be sure. They could change their mind. If they did—and I know this is not what you wanna hear—there is absolutely nothing you could do about it. Nothing.

—We’ve been making more bacteria, the kind Dr. Franklin used against Lapetus.

—Good for you. Here’s a thought. Why not use that against the Americans? What do you need me for?

—That bacteria is useless against it now. The one thing the EDC managed to do before they were shut down is to develop a chemical shield they could put on Themis so she’d be protected if the aliens ever came back. It kills those bacteria on contact. They have it. We have it. We sprayed Themis the minute you got here. You see! I do need you! With Themis, with the other robot, we— —You don’t get it, do you. They didn’t send a dozen robots here because that’s all they had. They thought it was enough to wipe out a few people scattered across the globe. They have thousands of these robots, Katherine. Thousands! More than that. They could carpet this place so that every single person on Earth would be able to see at least one of them. They wouldn’t need to, though. They have ships, and weapons…If you wanna do something useful, find a way to stop all this nonsense with the US, and the camps. Just…make the world like it was, before all that.

—I’m not sure anyone can do that, Vincent.

—Why not? You broke it. You fix it.

—Did I? Break it? You dug up pieces of a giant robot all over the world, then the aliens came, and they killed…They killed a lot of people…I’m sorry, I just…No crying, Katherine! My point is if anyone “broke it,” Vincent, it’s you. You, and your wife, and Dr. Franklin.

—…Whom did you lose?

—Whom did I lose? Does it matter? A lot of people lost a lot of people. I’m not…special.

—Who?

—My husband. My…daughter. She was eight months old.

—I’m sorry.

—No, Vincent. I’m sorry. You, and the Americans, you started all this. You don’t get to be sorry. You get to live with it, that’s all.

—…

—And the camps? You’re surprised about that? You’re the ones who told us we’re all kind of related to them, some of us more than others. You told us they only came for a few of their kind. You’re still saying it. Dr. Franklin said it on television the same day you disappeared. I know you think it’s supposed to make everyone feel better, knowing that these Ekt, or whatever, didn’t really want to kill all of us. But it doesn’t Vincent. It just doesn’t. My baby’s dead. She’s not coming back. And they’re still here. The people they came for, some of them are still here. Millions of us died, and they’re still here, walking the streets, like nothing happened.