iD (27 page)

Amy shook her head. “You mean the printers? Because they’re doing something pretty important, and–”

“No, I do not mean the printers.” Javier bounced on his toes and then he was right there, right in front of her, and he was holding her face in his hands. “I mean the total lack of anybody here but us.”

She smiled. “Oh. That.”

“Yes. That.” The bedroom was the room she had focused on most. She had chosen colours she thought he would like, and bought architectural bougainvillea and wisteria, and printed a trellis in the wall and ceiling so that the plants could climb up as high as they liked. The room featured a smart futon that warmed and softened and even folded itself around you if you liked. There were more pillows and blankets than she knew what to do with. The room also had a rather fantastic view, and was south facing, so they’d get the most light possible.

Javier noticed exactly none of it. “Did you print this dress?” he asked.

Amy nodded. “Do you like it? I was a little late getting it together–”

“Take it off.”

She folded her arms. “First, I want to ask you something.”

Javier cursed foully in Spanish. “Not this again. Not now. Not after all the shit we've been through.”

She pulled back one of the pillows. Behind it was a box. A basket, really. And in the basket was the first item she had ever printed. An apple. When Javier saw it, his eyes narrowed.

“I thought you were an atheist,” he said.

“I am. I just thought you would appreciate the imagery.” She pursed her lips. “I also spent quite a lot of time choosing just the right shades of yellow and pink and red, just so you know.”

“Oh, it looks plenty tasty, all right.” He picked it up. Dusted it off on his shirt. “Is it what I think it is?”

She nodded. “I wanted a way to make the change to your failsafe that wouldn’t mean remaking you entirely. I’m sorry it took so long.” Her vision swam. She wiped her eyes hastily. “I mean, I’m really sorry, Javier. If I hadn’t been so selfish, if I hadn’t waited so long, Powell would never have hurt you. He couldn’t have.”

Javier moved to the window. “You know about that, huh?”

“I saw it happen. Later. I went through some records.”

Javier nodded. "Right.”

She joined him. Outside, dawn was just turning the city a pale lilac. Only a few stars were still visible. “I was going to tell you, that day, that I had researched him. Or,
we
researched him. The island and I. It was on the tip of my tongue."

Javier's shoulders sank in the approximation of a sigh. "Of course you did."
"So I knew who he was, when you…”

“When I poisoned you,” Javier said. “When I killed you.”

She reached for his hand. She squeezed it. “I’m still here. See?”

He squeezed back. “You forgive me?”

She blinked. “For what? I’m the one who should be ashamed. Why do you think I stayed away for so long? He raped you because I didn’t do what you asked me to do – I didn’t hack you, even when you begged me to. That’s my fault, not yours.” She broke their grasp, and moved for the bed. She sat down and hugged her knees. “I knew you couldn't possibly forgive me for that, so I left you alone. Well, mostly alone. I watched you.”

A smile pricked at the corners of his mouth and slowly unfurled across his face. His voice was quiet. "The crossroads? In Macondo?"

She smiled back. It was strange to be so shy with him, like this, but there was really no way around it. The only way out was through. "Yes. I was with you at the crossroads. And the elevator. And the balcony. And any other time you were visible to surveillance technology. Which was a lot. "She hugged her knees a little harder. "Thank you for rescuing my dad."

Javier scrubbed at one eye with the heel of his right hand. "What? Oh. Well. I'm surprised he didn't, you know, hit me or something. I could tell he kind of wanted to. Me being the one who got out alive and all."

Amy frowned. "But you weren't the only one. Everyone is safe. I built an escape plan into the island."

"Well, I know that
now
, but you could have just
told
me that, so I didn't have to carry that weight..."

"I wasn't sure you'd want to know," Amy said. "I didn't tell the others about each other, either. Not right away. I woke up their pods at different points, as I found safe places for them to go, and–"

"Of course I wanted to know." He looked genuinely angry, now. Angry, and more than a little frustrated. "Jesus. I love my boys." He blinked. "I'm not sure I've ever said that out loud. I love my boys. And my girl. My girls. I love..."Javier trailed off. He weighed the apple in his hand. He started at it, and then her. With his gaze meeting hers, he took a furious bite from the apple. “Sweet.” He threw it behind him, pulled off his shirt. “Come here.”

Amy beamed. She stood up, smoothed her dress, and walked over to him, measuring her steps carefully so that she didn't appear to be running. He took her wrists first, and used them to circle her arms around him. Then he held her face in his hands. "You wanted to give me a choice," he said.

She nodded. "Yes."

"That's why you left me alone. You wanted me choose for myself."

Amy looked away, but he drew her face back gently so she'd have to look him in the eye. "I messed things up so badly," she said. "I wanted to let you leave, if you wanted to leave, and–"

His mouth closed over hers. It was an instant confirmation of her decision: hosting herself on a variety of spaces was interesting, but living here, in this skin, was much more fun. Especially when he was sucking on her lower lip like that, and running the tip of his tongue over it.

"Don't you know I always choose you?" He leaned their foreheads together. "Take off that dress. I feel like exercising my shiny new free will."

She pulled at the fabric, got caught in it, and waited as he did the rest. He was warmer than she remembered, fingertips to lips to chest, all warm as the sunlight stored in his skin. He was also bigger than she remembered. Softer.

“You’re iterating ?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“I’m glad,” Amy said, and rolled on top of him. “The first time I saw you, you were pregnant. So I have good memories of it.”

“Thank you for giving Anza my eyes,” he said. “And that hair. You did a really great job with her hair.”

Amy fussed with his belt. Men’s belts were really tricky, it turned out. He did the last little bit quickly, and started inching out of his jeans. She decided to assist with the socks. Socks in bed were weird, she decided.

“Do you feel any different?” Amy asked, balling up the socks.

“No,” he said, “but you look even more beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes.

“No, seriously! You have a certain glow about you.”

“That’s because I’m about to have sex with you.”

“Well now you’re just blushing. Blushing doesn’t count.” He appeared to think about it a second time. “Though, I suppose, as Voight-Kampff tests go…”

Amy threw a pillow at him. While his eyes were covered, she climbed atop him and started tickling. He yelped, and flipped her over. Amy was glad to have incorporated tickling, in the new body. She had missed it, too.

“I think I’ve wanted this since the first time I tickled you.” Javier kissed her. “There’s just something about your laugh.”

Amy licked her lips. “Wow, that apple really is sweet.”

“Hey. Focus. I have a delicate ego, over here.”

She squirmed. “It doesn’t feel very delicate, to me.”

He grinned. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She kissed him very quickly, just to get the taste again. “I’m just glad. More people will eat the apples, if they’re sweet. So it’ll get out faster.”

Javier’s progress downward paused. He lifted his face up from her stomach. “Excuse me?”

“The apples. The food. If it tastes good, more vN will eat it. It’s no use if it’s too disgusting to eat, right?”

“What apples? What food?”

She pushed herself up on her elbows. She gestured around the room. “All the apples. All the food. All the vN food, anyway.”

Javier’s eyes narrowed. “You changed the FEMA rollout. It’s not poison, anymore.”

“Well, yes. Obviously. But, I mean, why stop there? All the printed food, all over the world, uses basically the same machinery to prepare each mix. Some of the recipes are proprietary, you know, eleven secret metals and minerals, but corporate security is
really
lax, and–”

“And you changed all the food. To the formula you just gave me.”

Amy nodded. “Pretty much.”

“So… you’re wiping out the failsafe? For everyone?”

“Everyone who eats.” She fell back to the bed. “You didn’t think I was just letting Portia run rampant because I felt like it, did you? I needed the distraction.”

Javier hove into her vision. He braced his hands on either side of her head. “You’ve started something huge, here. You realize that, right? I mean, war could break out. Real war. On our species.”

Amy looked outside. “I was under the impression that particular war had already started,” she said. “I just wanted all of us to be able to fight back.”

Javier covered his eyes. He flopped back on the bed. He stayed that way for a long time. Eventually, she rolled over and cuddled him. “If it makes you feel any better, I have a plan.”

“Oh, this should be good.”

“It is good. I think so, anyway. I think you’ll like it. It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Well…” Amy sat up. “How would you feel about the biggest forestry project… ever?”

 

Acknowledgments
 

 

This book would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of several people. Among them: my very patient editors Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris; the stellar publicity staff at Angry Robot Books and the Robot Army; my agent Monica Pacheco of Anne McDermid & Associates; Brian David Johnson at Intel Labs and Joe Zawadsky of The Tomorrow Project; the best former roommate ever, Theresa Taing; Sandra Kasturi and Brett Alexander Savory and everyone who makes the ChiSeries what it is; my parents; the Cecil Street Irregulars; my teachers Marc Gabel and Kaya McGregor, and Jessica Langer.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Madeline grew up in a household populated by science fiction fans. She graduated from a Jesuit university in 2005, after having written a departmental thesis on science fiction.

After meeting Ursula K. LeGuin in the basement of the Elliott Bay Book Company that year, she decided to start writing science fiction stories. While immigrating to Canada from the United States in 2006, she could not work or study and joined the Cecil Street Irregulars – a genre writers’ workshop founded by Judith Merril – instead.

Since then she has been published in Tesseracts, Flurb, Nature, Escape Pod and elsewhere. She has two masters degrees: one in anime, cyborg theory, and fan culture, and the other in strategic foresight and innovation. She has written on such matters for io9, Tor.com, BoingBoing, The Creators Project, SF Signal, and others. Currently she works as a consultant in Toronto.

madelineashby.com
 
 

 

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Island of the mech

An Angry Robot original 2013

Copyright © Madeline Ashby 2013

Madeline Ashby asserts the moral right to be

identified as the author of this work.

ISBN: 978 0 85766 312 2

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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and

incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or

localities is entirely coincidental.