Human After All (2 page)

“Selected, or across the board?”

“I’m no gentech.” Drue shrugged. “I’m just a pleasure-oriented piece of Bioware like you.”

“Are we still running a Scenario?”

“Aren’t we always running some sort of Scenario?”

Jaymes fought to clear his head. This was a major breach of contractual ethics as well as a criminal act. Gentren’s customer screening program was rigorous, stringent, uncompromising, and all the other adjectives that implied near infallibility, but it was just possible that a renegade noble had managed to fool the corporate Snupes.

“Please tell me you aren’t a Pyg,” Jaymes said, finding it easier to turn his thoughts into words with each passing second. “Because that really sounded like something one of those vac-heads would say.”

“What’s wrong with the Pygmalion Party? They’re fighting for your rights, you know.”

“They’re layabouts who think Citizenship should be handed out free to any slag who whines loudly enough. I’m willing to work for the privilege.”

“Do you really believe it’s a good thing for corporations to be able to buy lives and condition people for specific roles?”

“I don’t know how it was for you, but if Gentren hadn’t bought my birth contract, I would have been born into grinding poverty. I probably wouldn’t have made it past the first year because of malnutrition or some new disease they haven’t sprayed for in the Outers yet. Instead, I was induced in a sterile environment and raised by instructors who treated me as if I had value. I was given a top-notch education and the skills I’d need to fulfill my duties. I’ve enjoyed a life of plenty, and I have the option to buy my contract and become a full-fledged Citizen some day. I’m grateful to Gentren.”

“Lapdog,” Drue said and was about to elaborate on this theme when Jaymes’s fingers closed around his throat. It had happened too fast for even Drue the Fox’s heightened reflexes to block, and the Exotic elected to remain stationary and see what the other Companion had in mind. The chokehold allowed him to pull just enough air through his nose to keep from blacking out but didn’t allow him to speak.

“Interesting,” Jaymes said. “There are no parameters on physical violence with this program. I could kill you.”

“Please don’t.” A filtered voice floated down from overhead.

While Jaymes’s eyes tracked upward, Drue stayed perfectly still with the uncanny muscle control all Companions learned in childhood. The Exotic was combat-trained, but the T-bred had the advantage of him, and he didn’t want to die. All he need do was wait, and the Lady would speak the code to take the terrible pressure from his windpipe.

“This is not a Scenario, Siress,” Jaymes said carefully.

“I’m not a Siress, just a Lady, and I’m well aware that this is not a Scenario.” A door irised open in the wall behind Drue, and a tall woman stepped into the chamber. “I pray thee forgive me, Prince.” She arranged the designated keywords in a sentence, and Jaymes relaxed his grip on the other man’s neck. “Are you damaged, Drue?” she asked, waiting for the Fox to shake his head before she spoke again. “I would have released you sooner, but you needed a lesson in keeping your guard up.”

“Remind me to thank you,” Drue croaked.

A small line appeared between Jaymes’s brows at the disrespectful sarcasm in the Zot’s tone. His suspicions that this was a renegade House prompted him to speak, though habit kept his language cordial. “Lady, may I know your intentions?”

The regal woman smiled—an expression that curved her lips, but brought no warmth to her polar gray eyes. “I am Alvera, and this is my home. You may speak freely here.”

Jaymes took her word that they weren’t being recorded or surveilled and said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re a T-bred,” he said, as subtle clues in her demeanor added up.

Alvera inclined her head, emphasizing the line of her long neck. “Yes, but no longer a Companion. I’m a Citizen now.”

“Of course.” Jaymes bowed his head with a grace to equal hers. “Why have you broken protocol? If you’ll forgive me pointing it out, you could be barred from ever making a contract with Gentren or its affiliates again. It could become extremely difficult for you to do business.”

“I know the risks I’m taking,” she said. “Can you say the same?”

“The corporation takes care of me,” Jaymes said confidently.

“As they are doing at this moment?” Alvera glided closer, lifting a hand like an ivory carving with gilded nails. Jaymes didn’t move as the golden talons trailed lightly down his smooth cheek. “I don’t fear to get this close because I know I won’t trigger your survival programming. Your new parameters are complete and will activate… now. Look how you tremble!” The Lady stepped back to stand next to Drue. “Amazing,” she said. “It looks as though Arkay’s claims were not empty boasting. The formula worked ten times faster than it did with you.”

Drue studied Jaymes. The T-bred was shaking from head to foot, his eyes unfocused, and his thoughts clearly as disheveled as his clothing as the new compulsion program replaced the one already wet-wired into his synapses. Drue had resisted too; his training had allowed no other response. However, when the sequence was complete and he saw clearly for the first time, he was glad Alvera had chosen him as her test subject. He lived in the present and for the future, and he was forgetting his past as quickly as possible. “You won’t be damaged,” he said, taking pity on the shivering T-bred.

Jaymes heard truth in the Fox’s tone, but he continued to struggle against the new parameters dropping into place like walls of thick glass. With Gentren, he at least had the illusion of being in control of his body and his mind, if not his life. The imprint module he’d taken so readily from the Exotic had an inhibition framework he could feel at the edge of every motion, each thought: a fail-safe poised to deploy at the first hint of divergence from the accepted range. “What has been done to me?” he asked again, proud of the steadiness of his voice.

“You’ve been chosen to help prevent a great tragedy and free our kind from chemical slavery,” Alvera said. “I’m sorry it was necessary to recruit you against your will, but I would do much worse in service to my cause. You will think me cruel, but I cannot afford to care about you. You sold yourself to Gentren, and now you belong to me, that is how I must view it. To keep my guilt at a manageable level, I have the rationale that I will use you for a nobler purpose.” She glanced at Drue. “You’re happier since your conversion, aren’t you?”

Drue smiled. “I’m sorry. What was the question? I just love the way you hoitys talk, all formal and gracious like storybook royalty, but there’re so many big words, and I’m just a Zot.”

Alvera blinked, the first uncontrolled thing Jaymes had seen her do. Drue didn’t flinch when she raised her hand, but Jaymes could tell he wanted to. The tense moment passed as Alvera ran her fingers through the Exotic’s long hair, leaving it in fetching disarray. “I love your fire, Drue,” she said. “It just takes me by surprise sometimes. You’ve almost lost the ingrained habit of deference to Citizens, and that gladdens me. Now, if I could wash away my arrogance as easily, I would be truly happy.”

“I cannot go missing for long without my handler reporting the absence to the corporation,” Jaymes said. “A former Companion like you knows what value Gentren places on us.”

“The search would be comprehensive,” Alvera agreed. “But I have already contacted your Ms. Cielya and told her how delighted I am with you. She told me how delighted she was to be speaking with me in person and happily extended the contract. She also hinted that you are anxious to acquire Citizenship and would be glad of the extra income.”

“I see.” Jaymes paused before speaking again. “What now, Alvera?” he asked, deliberately addressing her familiarly.

“Very good,” she said. “You’re quick, Prince.”

“I’m in a hurry to become a Citizen.”

Alvera’s laugh was a revelation, full, round, and vivid as the taste of a ripe apricot, completely at odds with her glacial appearance. “G’sho,” she said, in the Companion salute. “I admire grit.”

Without another word, she turned and stepped back through the round door. Drue made an “after you” gesture, and Jaymes followed the Lady. As Drue stepped through the portal, it closed behind him. The small cylindrical chamber was featureless, and Jaymes figured it was a lift of some sort. His guess was borne out when he felt a subtle vibration through the soles of his boots, and then his stomach dropped about three stories before it caught back up with him. Bright light made Jaymes close his eyes as the ’vator thrust its occupants through the roof, and when he opened them, he saw The Cloister sprawled below, glittering and restless like a colony of phosphorescent creatures in a tide pool. It was encircled by the progressively darker and poorer meteorite belts of the Inner and Outer Cities, and in one of those farthest from the light, Jaymes had been conceived.

“May I know where we’re going?” Jaymes asked as he heard the high-pitched whine of a Veetle approaching. A moment later, the hybrid flying machine dropped from directly overhead to hover a foot off the roof. A sleek, waspish craft of anodized titanium-aluminum-carbon alloy and jewel-toned transparent resin, the Veetle was capable of landing or taking off vertically by redirecting its jets. It wouldn’t be Jaymes’s first ride in one by any means, but it was the first time he’d seen a client at the controls rather than a liveried pilot. Alvera looked over her shoulder as she settled in the com-chair.

“We’re going to a party,” she said.

“Don’t worry.” Drue’s bedroom voice rubbed against Jaymes’s ear. “The Lady is an evasion-rated pilot.”

“That’s not particularly reassuring.”

“Do clients find your contrariness stimulating?” Drue asked sardonically.

Jaymes sat back in his seat and fastened his safety harness. “My clients find everything about me stimulating,” he said.

Lady Alvera chuckled softly as the Veetle rose into the light-choked sky.

“S
TILL
want to know where we’re going?” Drue asked, lounging back against his seat.

Jaymes looked out the amethyst-tinted window at the glittering spiderweb of the City’s thoroughfares thousands of feet below. “I would guess we’re attending the Covillion.”

Drue hid his admiration of the shrewd deduction. “I suppose it is rather obvious. Have you been before?”

“A few times.”

“Don’t overwhelm me with details.”

“It’s a private Hote party. Surely you’ve been to one before.”

“Always wanted to go to this one, but never had the opportunity. I hear everyone mingles on a completely equal basis, and no one is allowed to recognize anyone’s social rank.”

“You’ve heard right.”

“The Hotes must love a chance to drop all the pretense and get dirty like the common folk. It would have to be a prime relief.”

“Do you know what the Lady intends for me?” Jaymes steered the conversation toward something more interesting to him.

Drue shook his head. “I know what I need to know,” he said. “You’re worried, right? I felt the same way at first, but Alvera doesn’t mean us any harm. She was one of us once, don’t forget.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Jaymes said. “It doesn’t make me feel any better about being under her control.”

Alvera banked the craft like a dragonfly after prey, darting down into the cityscape, skimming the face of a glass pyramid, stitching a path across several blocks of buildings like mammoth ice sculptures. Swooping to a stop, she hovered in front of a façade like a hundred meter high sheet of corroded copper gleaming wetly in the ever-present rainbows of light. An opening appeared in the verdigris surface, and Alvera piloted the Veetle through a veil of water into a huge parking garage. She turned off the guidance system, and the parking facility’s computer took over, slotting the plum colored vehicle into a padded berth. Alvera opened the canopy with a voice command, and they climbed out.

“Do you have any questions before we go in?” she asked.

Jaymes nodded. “Was Drue’s costume your idea?”

Alvera laughed as she pulled off her white outer robe to reveal an elegant gown. “The Fox has his own sense of style,” she said when her perfectly coiffed head reappeared. “And so, it would appear, do you. A wing collar is not quite standard, is it?”

“Blame my tailor.”

“Which model do you have?” Drue was compelled to ask, fashion looming large in a Companion’s pantheon of personal gods.

“My tailor is Artisan Class Bioware.”

“Impressive,” Drue said grudgingly. “I have a custom Textrobe unit.”

“That’s a nice machine.” Jaymes nodded. “Almost infinite design capability, but the fabrifluid is really expensive.”

Drue snorted. “Not as expensive as a human tailor.”

“The contract was a gift from an admirer.”

“Does snottiness come naturally to you, or did you have instruction?”

“I was merely stating a fact.”

“Yeah, but it’s the
way
you state it that makes it
so
condescending.”

“Enough!” Alvera said. “I regret bringing such an informative exchange to an end, but I do not wish to be more than fashionably late.”

Jaymes gave her a half bow and offered his arm. “You look stunning,” he said as they began to walk. “A queen of the night.”

“You are
very
good.” Alvera laughed again as they entered the lift tube. “You said that without a trace of mockery.”

“I can compliment you without having to lie. An appreciation of great beauty is a weakness of mine.”

“Charming. You live up to your Persona Tag.”

“May I know what your Persona was?” Jaymes asked, holding aside the train of her black and gold cut velvet dress. “Though I think I could guess.”

“I was the Swan,” she said as the lift doors closed.

“I’ve heard of you, of course,” he said. “You were mistress to two Presidents-General and, according to legend, started the Frost-Combinex CorpWar.”

“Perhaps I bear some blame for starting the conflict,” she said. “But only by existing.”

“I can’t imagine two corporate nations going to war over me,” Jaymes mused.