Darwin's Paradox (28 page)

“Angel!”
Daniel blurted out.

This was Julie’s little girl? Of course, thought Victor, remembering her from Aard’s images. She looked much older somehow, and much less innocent than the last images he’d seen.

“Dad!” Angel exclaimed with delighted surprise. She obviously hadn’t noticed him standing there, disguised in his Vee-radicator tattoos. “I thought you were dead.” Then she turned to her mother.

Julie was both stunned and elated, obviously corralling the urge to rush and embrace her daughter that was tearing her apart. Angel nodded to her mother in enigmatic acknowledgement, which puzzled Victor. She looked pleased to see her mother; yet there lingered a reserve, in contrast to her shocked pleasure at seeing her father. Her mother caught it too, and looked puzzled, if not slightly dismayed. Perhaps the girl was just being mature about the reunion she’d obviously known her mother wasn’t dead and seeing her wasn’t a surprise.

“Aileen.” Gaia chose to ignore the others, including Angel, her previous ward. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“To this young lady,” Aileen said, putting her hand gently on Angel’s shoulder, forcing Gaia to give her attention to the girl.

“Hello, Gaia,” Angel said in a cool voice.

“So, you’ve had your jaunt. Ready to come home, kitten?”

“My home is with my parents,” Angel said, glancing at her father but carefully avoiding her mother’s gaze.

“Then you’re a blind fool,” Gaia snapped. “After what your mother did—”

“Despite what she did,” Angel said sharply and threw an anguished glance at her mother. Victor wondered what this was all about and saw that Julie was as puzzled as he was. Then her face suddenly darkened and it was obvious to Victor, as the terrible truth dawned on him, too, that it had just hit Julie like a blow to the solar plexus: Angel had seen Julie’s shooting—the dubbed version for the public that thoroughly vilified her. It was doubly worse that Gaia, of all people, had shown it to her.

Victor’s gaze flickered from mother to daughter as they fixed eyes briefly on each other, each mirroring the other’s torment. The pain in his chest spiked. This was his fault again, for not clearing Julie’s name. To Angel, Julie was still a seditious murderer.

“I’m not excusing my mother for what she did,” Angel went on. “But you lied to me and manipulated the truth for your own ends. You deliberately fed me half-truths about her and about a lot of other things.” Angel threw a furtive glance at Julie as if to gauge her reaction, which had passed swiftly from shock to terrible dismay. “But we’re not here to discuss my mother,” Angel continued in the professional tone of a person much older than twelve. “We’re here to discuss you.”

Gaia laughed sharply then stopped herself, as if swiftly remembering that she wasn’t just dealing with a child but with Aileen and other Circle members. “Well, as you can see, I’m busy right now.” Gaia started walking again with a motion of her hand for the others to follow. “Busy taking these traitors to the Pol Station for yet again sabotaging the A.I. core. You see, we discovered a conspiracy, Aileen,” she continued cheerfully, obviously improvising as she went along. Victor had to hand it to her, she always could think on her feet and had a flare for convincing argument.

Aileen wasn’t buying it this time, though. “I think you better listen to what Angel has to say first,” she said sharply enough to arrest Gaia to a full stop.

Gaia turned with a glower, set her fists on her hips and aimed her gaze on the little girl like a shotgun. “Well?” she said with undisguised impatience. “Out with it.”

Angel straightened to her full height and commenced in a cool voice, “First of all, you’re the one responsible for the fraud Victor Burke was accused of. We checked—Manfred and I. You set him up.”

Victor gasped with relief. Aileen nodded to him with a kind smile. “You are fully pardoned, Mr. Burke.”

Gaia dismissed this with a brusque wave of her hand and turned to Aileen. “You’re going to listen to these two brats? The girl is a wild hoyden and the boy is a mischievous vee-com raider with no respect for Icarian law and order.”

“I have confirmed their findings,” Aileen said calmly. “Have patience, Gaia—there’s more.”

Angel took her cue to continue. “With SAM’s help,” she glanced at her mother again, who regarded her glance with great interest, “Manfred and I accessed some old databases, which prove that not only did you purposefully start the Darwin epidemic, but you also killed or incriminated all of your witnesses.”

“You can’t prove that,” Gaia hissed though her voice sounded a little strident.

“But I can,” said Victor in a clear voice. All eyes suddenly fixed on him and he felt himself blush. Through his peripheral vision he was acutely aware of Julie gazing intently at him as he continued, “I have irrefutable evidence, collected by an impeccable source,” he ended with a flickering glance at Julie and a smile of satisfaction. “Leonard Crane didn’t kill Vogel or Tsutsumi. You did, Gaia. Then you pinned the murder on the third witness, Dr. Crane.”

“This is foolishness,” Gaia waved her hand like a queen. “Why would I purposefully spread a disease like Darwin. There’s no logic to that,” she argued. “I admit that I was there. I was mayor of Icaria-11 when the disease broke out and destroyed the city. Blame me for that but you can’t blame me for Darwin or those murders. I have no motive—”

“Except for what you did next,” Carl piped up. All eyes turned to the soft-spoken man. “I’ve been investigating you on behalf of Aileen Rourke and the Circle.”

This time Gaia’s face paled.

“We suspected you in the killing of the previous Head Pol, for which Julie Crane was accused,” Carl went on. “My people in Circle Special Investigations found evidence that Julie Crane was no where near him when he was killed. Tyers’ group in CSI proved that John Dykstra poisoned Kraken at your instructions.”

Victor stared at Tyers, then glanced back at Julie, whose expression mirrored his. She obviously hadn’t figured him for a Circle member operative, just the Head Pol’s lackey that he played so well.

“My people also routed out your tampering of the vid showing Julie Crane’s shooting of the two Pols twelve years ago,” Carl went on. “Although she did shoot them, we determined a different motive, resulting from a personal quarrel. The first shot was deliberately not fatal and the second one was an accident. She was never involved with the Dystopians. That was another Dykstra fabrication also by your instructions.”

“This is outrageous,” Gaia said, her face now tightening into a strained glower of insulted outrage. “I won’t accept this insubordination from someone in my employ. You deliberately disobeyed your directive, Frenkel. Consider yourself fired.”

“I don’t actually work for you...and I’m not finished,” Carl asserted in his quiet voice. “Once you got Victor out of the way and re-established yourself as mayor of Icaria-5, you brought Julie Crane in to shut down the A.I.-core and complete your plan of creating a race of human-virus-machines that you expected to control through Proteus.”

“But your treachery doesn’t end there,” Angel added. “You shut down the A.I. core to remove SAM because it had evidence against you. SAM was the last informant who stood in your way. I know because you said so yourself to Brian Dykstra that day in the mall, when I got sick on that drink you gave me.”

Gaia stared, incredulous. “You couldn’t have heard us—”

“Enhanced hearing,” Zane explained smugly. “Both she and her mother have it. A result of conductive and sensori-neural increases in the middle ear and in the cochlea, increasing frequency selectivity and decreasing the proportion of reverberant sound—”

“Thank you, Zane,” Aileen cut him off gently and turned her attention full on Gaia. “The Circle has had a long standing suspicion of your self-serving motives and hidden treachery. All we needed was proof,” Aileen confirmed. “Now, thanks to Angel, Manfred and Carl...and Victor, we do.”

Gaia seethed with frustrated anger. Throwing away any remnant at pretence of innocence, she scowled at everyone then turned dagger eyes on the Head Pol. “Langor, do something!” she commanded.

Langor glared back at her with pure hatred. “Do you take me for a traitor as well as a witless idiot?” he growled, swinging his gun in her direction. “I know when I’ve been played for a fool, and I sure as chaos don’t like it.”

“I’m your boss, you moron. I expect you to do as I say.”

“Go to chaos.”

Gaia then did something Victor thought impossible. She shrieked in exasperation.

“Just like a witch,” Manfred laughed, arm around Angel. “You deserve to rot in the Pol Station for what you did to Angel’s mother and all those other people.”

Gaia threw a disdainful glance at Manfred, then she turned to Angel with a cruel smile. “I see you share your mother’s atrocious taste in men.” Her smile grew wicked. “And speaking of atrocious men, this should keep you all busy!” Gaia pressed the devise in her left hand.

Daniel abruptly collapsed with a scream and convulsed on the floor.

“Dad!” Angel cried. As she and the others rushed to her father’s side, Gaia slunk back in the maelstrom of confusion.

Julie threw herself at her. “Stop it!”

Gaia jerked back. She jammed her hand in her tunic folds and pulled out her pistol, pointing it at Julie rushing heedlessly toward her. Zane flew into Gaia, knocking her off balance. The gun discharged and they both fell hard on the floor, Gaia shrieking in angry frustration as the gun flew out of her grasp and clattered out of reach. She pushed Zane’s limp form off her and swore viciously. But she’d let go of the device and Daniel gasped, able to breath again.

Aileen recovered the device and tersely instructed the remaining Pols to restrain Gaia. Julie bent over Zane’s unconscious body. He’d been hit in the shoulder and though cauterized by the laser, the wound was a mess. Victor knelt beside Julie and took charge. “Give me a hand,” he instructed one of Frank’s Pols. The Pol hesitated with a furtive glance at Langor.

“Get him some first aid now!” Langor barked.

As the Pol stepped quickly over to Zane and began applying first aid, Aileen instructed the Pols, “Take him to the Med-Center.” Then her gaze swept from Gaia, restrained by two of Tyer’s CSI men, to Julie and finally to Victor. “I assume that, as reinstated mayor of Icaria-5 you will be detaining Gaia in your Pol Station, Victor?”

“Yes,” he responded, pushing down on his knees and easing to a standing position. “She’ll have to answer for several crimes, including the murders of Eric Vogel and Ewan Tsutsumi, among other atrocities,” he glanced at Julie, “to be clarified with the data in my possession.”

Angel, no longer able to contain herself, rushed into her father’s arms. “You’re alive!” she sighed into his chest, briefly losing her cool once again and reminding Victor that she was a young girl after all. Daniel twirled her in his arms with a glad laugh, then set her back down as Julie rose to her feet and turned to them.

Victor saw Angel hesitate at Julie’s imploring look. He felt his own chest ache with hers. Then, as though Angel made an important but difficult decision, her reticent cool demeanor dissolved and she returned Julie a shaky smile. That was sufficient invitation for the desperate mother and in a few determined steps Julie was embracing her little girl—the reason she’d risked her life to come to Icaria in the first place.

In another heartbeat the three of them gravitated into a huddle of entwined arms and tearful laughter. As all three wept joyously, the warmth that radiated from their mutual embrace could have heated the entire planet.

Allowing Julie’s family their special moment together, Aileen waited before clearing her throat. “I’m afraid there are a few additional issues to resolve,” she said in a professional tone. All eyes turned to her. “For instance, some issues related to the A.I.-core, now reinstated by Ms Crane. Issues of sovereignty and safety.”

Victor noticed Angel and Manfred exchanging pointed looks.

“And there are further issues we must discuss, Victor, with you and these three itinerants. Issues of utmost importance to Icaria.”

“You mean we’re not free to go?” Daniel asked in a rather meek voice, his hunched shoulders showing obvious disappointment.

Carl said, “That’s right, Mr. Woods.” He snapped a hand to his security men and they glided next to Julie, Daniel and Angel, still entwined in a loose embrace. “The three of you must come with us. You too, Manfred.”

“You
had something important to say, Angel?” Victor asked. Treated for his wound, feeling refreshed and having changed into clean clothes, he was looking more relaxed and confident than Julie had ever seen him. Angel, Manfred, Daniel and she had just entered Victor’s office-suite in the Admin-Center at his summons.

Angel glanced from her parents to Manfred then straightened. “Yes, Mr. Mayor.”

“Please, call me Victor.” He motioned for them all to take seats.

“Okay, Victor. As I had it explained to me by SAM just hours ago, the A.I. core considers itself a community that serves and abides by Icaria’s laws just like we humans do, yet, they are not offered the concessions that we typically get, just because they don’t have bodies.”

Victor glanced at Julie and Daniel who stood behind Angel and Manfred. “Well, they do serve an indispensable function to Icaria-5. Do I take it that you’re here to negotiate terms for them?” He glanced inquiringly at Julie, who raised her brows in response. This was Angel’s show. All she knew from her daughter was that SAM had given her a message for Victor.
Funny, how SAM hadn’t confided in her,
Julie thought.

“That’s right,” Angel said. “I have SAM’s terms here in this vee-pad.” She turned to Manfred who handed Victor the vee-pad. “The terms aren’t just for the A.I. community, though,” she added.

Victor looked up from the vee-pad.

“They outline terms for the veemeld community too. They’ve been used without genuine recognition for too many years.”

To Julie’s amazement, over the next hour Angel negotiated them through a comprehensive plan that made logical and thoughtful sense. Of course it did. SAM had drawn it up. How mature and forthright Angel had delivered her terms, Julie thought with swelling pride. She’d spoken like an adult, astutely argued her points, submitted to some and stood fast on others. A true leader, Angel was proving to be a great spokesperson for both the veemelds and the A.I. community—something Julie had never been because she’d failed to embrace their group and felt shame instead of pride for being a veemeld most of her life.

***

Julie wandered the leisure room of the apartment Victor had assigned to them to clean up and rest until the debriefing. She’d had a bath and felt refreshed but not relaxed. Daniel looked up at her as he went over his list of travel items he planned to request of Victor, and tilted his head with a curious smile.

“You’re not worried about what they want, are you?”

“No,” she responded half absent-mindedly. She glanced distractedly at the doorway of the room Angel was in. “I trust Victor. They’ll let us go, I’m sure. It’s just a formality, I think.” She knew she was rambling, keeping her mind busy as her mouth moved. “Although I can’t figure out why the Chair of the Circle will be there...”

Daniel knew what she wanted to do; what she needed to do. He gestured to the adjoining room with his chin and gave her a reassuring look.

Julie gave him a weak smile and peered around the doorjamb into the room where Angel was reading a book. She cleared her throat to indicate her presence and when Angel looked up, she said in a shy voice, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Angel replied and was about to return to the book when Julie entered the room and sat down next to her.

Julie offered a small smile, trying for humor to cut the thick tension that hung between them. “So, what’s this I hear about SAM looking like Manfred?”

Angel smiled with some embarrassment. “Yeah, he liked having a body. In fact, he seemed sad that you never gave him one.” Then she eyed Julie with a challenging look of inquiry. “How come you never visualized an avatar for SAM if he was your friend—”

“Best friend,” Julie corrected, responding to the sharp tone of Angel’s question with her own sharpness. After a pause, she exhaled and said in a softer voice, “I didn’t feel a need to visualize SAM. He lived in my heart,” she tapped her chest for emphasis. “He was so much like just another part of me, of my soul. It was like talking to myself.”

“Except SAM’s masculine,” Angel pointed out in that cool challenging voice, “and you’re not a man, so it couldn’t be like talking to yourself.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Julie conceded. “So, perhaps...” she trailed, letting the next words linger in her mind in silence. Like so many things back then, keeping SAM from materializing seemed the safest thing to do. Too late, she’d learned that what she thought was safe spelled disaster for her in the long run. Which brought her to the difficult subject she wanted to broach with Angel. She bent her head slightly and formulated her next words carefully. When she looked up into Angel’s cool eyes, she began in a voice that was hollow with remorse, “Listen, Angel. I’m not going to even try to ask your forgiveness and understanding for what I did twelve years ago. It was...” her voice stumbled, “...my darkest moment.”

“Mom, I know,” Angel said in a surprisingly soothing voice as she reached out to touch Julie’s shoulder. Her eyes had suddenly warmed and Julie thought she finally recognized her little girl inside. “The creep put your uncle in the Pol Station, where he died,” Angel went on. “Then he scoffed at you. He was so mean to you.”

“It doesn’t excuse my violence,” Julie said. “I responded to violence with more violence. It’s not the answer.” In that first act of violence, she’d set in motion a career of violence, right up to her recent killing of that Vee-radicator in the heath, Julie thought mournfully. It was the butterfly effect—the strange notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in Peking could set off a tornado in Texas. Her father’s creative-destruction theories of stable chaos seemed to haunt her at every turn.

Then she didn’t know how they got that way but she was crying in her daughter’s arms. They were both crying, Angel stroking her hair to comfort her. She was suddenly struck by an incongruent thought: how tall Angel had become!

***

“Come in, come in,” Victor said nervously as he drew the door open further for Julie, Angel and Daniel to enter his office-suite in the Admin-Center. He motioned for them to take a seat on one of his couches. Daniel’s still-cautious gaze swept the room, noting that several people were already there, most of whom he recognized. Carl looked serious, almost distracted, and barely met his eyes. Manfred smiled at Daniel but saved his brightest smile for Angel. Aileen Rourke, looking impeccable in her official Circle robes, nodded in greeting. Tyers leaned against the wall, looking enigmatic, as usual.

Victor pointed with his open hand to the two strangers standing next to Tyers, a bearded young man with large eyes and an attractive woman with a calm face, a female counterpart to Tyers. Neither smiled. The man let his gaze meet Daniel’s briefly before looking away. The woman grazed him with a fleeting but penetrating look before resting sharp eyes on Julie.

“This is Dr. Joshua Cole, Head Researcher, and Dr. Kristin Olafsen, Supervisor, of the Department of Progenesis,” Victor said.

Daniel felt Julie stiffen next to him, but she didn’t let her emotions reach her face. He knew that long ago she’d dreaded the DP, fearing that she would end up there as one of their subjects. It was a justified fear, Daniel thought, and wasn’t surprised to see that she still felt that way. Was she rethinking her assumptions about the purpose of this meeting? He knew he was starting to.

“Hello,” Daniel and Julie responded in near unison to the two strangers who nodded gravely.

“You know everyone else here,” Victor continued, hands sweeping the room. “The Head Pol couldn’t make it, but Tyers is here in his place. I trust you’re comfortable and refreshed and ready to go home?” he asked politely.

“Yes, thanks,” Daniel answered for the family as the three of them settled into the couch, Angel snug in the middle. Julie wrapped her arm around Angel like she never intended to let go of her daughter. Perhaps she didn’t, Daniel pondered. Since they’d reunited, Julie hadn’t let Angel out of her sight, except to go to the bathroom. He also thought that the two DP people might have rattled her a little. Was she afraid they might try to take Angel? He reached behind Angel to give Julie a reassuring touch with his hand and their eyes met briefly. Her expression was hard to read.

Victor cleared his throat. “We—Icaria-5,” then with a glance at Aileen, “all of Icaria, owe the three of you so much. Daniel, thanks to your information on the Vee-radicators and on Dykstra particularly. Tyer’s men have already reported considerable success in shutting down their major operations and a quite a few of their hidey-holes.” Victor nodded to Tyers who gave them a brief, curt smile. Victor went on, “With Dykstra incarcerated, Washington recovering in the Pol Station infirmary and the rest of their disparate group scattered and on the run, I don’t think they’ll bother you again.”

Julie firmed her lips into an appreciative smile. Although her face showed none of it, Daniel knew she still harbored some suspicion, particularly with the two DP researchers here.

“Angel, you and Manfred revealed Gaia’s conspiracy and helped us put her away. I also owe you a special thanks, Angel, for clearing my name.”

“My pleasure,” she said cheerfully, “but Manfred was the mastermind in that.”

Victor nodded. “We owe a lot to you, too, Manfred. However,” he gave Angel a large smile. “I must commend Angel on her skill in mending our relationship with the A.I.-core. If you ever want a job in politics, give me a call.” Then he looked at Julie again. Daniel noticed those intensely pale blue eyes deepen with tenderness. “I know you came to acquire concessions for your family, but you ended up helping Icaria instead. I want to give you my assurance, and the Circle’s too,” he glanced at Aileen and let his gaze flicker between Julie and Daniel, “that you’re free to return to the heath. Your family will be left in peace, except for any assistance we can offer, of which I urge you to avail yourselves.”

Daniel caught a nervous exchange of looks between Carl and Aileen. With a terse look at the two DP people, Carl was about to interject but Aileen frowned slightly and shook her head at him. What did they know that they hadn’t shared with Victor and weren’t sharing now with Julie and Daniel? He noticed that Julie hadn’t missed this exchange either and their eyes met briefly. She raised a brow slightly.

Victor continued. He favoured Julie with a deeply thankful expression. “Twelve years ago you gave me back my city with your information on Darwin and Dystopians. This time you gave me back my life.” His voice had grown thick with emotion. In answer to Julie’s puzzled expression, he added, “...with your friendship and your trust.”

Julie said nothing but gave him a crooked smile. A silent message seemed to pass between them, and Daniel sensed that this pertained to some incident they’d shared during their sleuthing to re-instate the core.

Victor let himself be distracted by the holo screen behind him, which had just come to life. “Ah, this is the part that I want you to see,” he said, looking very intense as he pointed to the large screen. A NewsVee program had just started.

“Twelve years ago Icaria’s police force was chasing this young woman for murder and sedition,” a strong male voice began to accompany the image of a younger Julie dressed in her bright red Com-Center outfit. The newscast then proceeded to correct the erroneous accusations against Julie, one at a time, bringing in Gaia’s conspiratorial involvement, the tampering with vee-clips, and her and John Dykstra’s part in the murder of the previous Head Pol. The newscast continued to follow Gaia’s heinous actions backwards in time to her part in spreading Darwin and her cover up, which involved the murders of Vogel and Tsutsumi and framing Julie’s father, Leonard Crane. The newscast eventually returned to the present.

“Besides these criminal actions, Gaia was also found responsible for the slandering of Mayor Victor Burke, who had been accused of fraudulent practices and arrested by the Pol Station. With Gaia now in custody and Burke cleared, the Circle has reinstated him as mayor of Icaria-5.”

Victor switched the holo off and turned to the others. “What they won’t be telling the public is that John Dykstra’s son, Brian Dykstra, is being held in the Pol Station for collusion and murder and all the atrocious actions he is responsible for as the leader of the Vee-radicators.”

“What about Frank Langor?” Julie asked. Daniel stole a glance at her, but her face betrayed nothing.

“Langor remains Head Pol for now, pending possible suspension from his duties.” He didn’t look straight at Julie.

Daniel felt his face flush with rising anger.

“He’s on probation,” Victor continued. “His tenure will be decided during a thorough official investigation, involving his peers, the Justi-Center and the Circle. I think the panel will exonerate him due to his ignorance of the situation and his subsequent actions to redeem the situation. He was primarily following orders without knowledge of their seditious nature.”

Daniel’s anger spiked. What about what he’d done to Julie, though? When she’d somewhat reluctantly confided to him about how Frank had violated her, Daniel had erupted into rage probably why she’d hesitated in telling him and wanted to smash Langor’s face in. But—Julie had insisted he do nothing, not even speak of it again.

“But,” he started to protest and instantly felt Julie’s stern look on him, warning him to silence. He sighed and shook his head. “Never mind.”

“There are, in fact, extenuating circumstances to consider in Gaia’s case as well,” Carl said. Everyone turned to look at the normally quiet-spoken man, who’d purposefully drawn attention to himself with that contentious statement.