Join (6 page)

“My parents were a honeymoon join,” Chance says. “Both professionals. We lived in the Andes. My Five is superb. Ninety-five plus in four intelligence dimensions, athletic, a sweet temperament. We joined about six months ago.”

“Congratulations,” Rope Three says.

“Thank you.”

“And you're concerned about trauma, when the drive dies?” Rope Three asks.

“Yes.”

“You're a doctor. You know that you're at a fragile time.”

“Yes.”

“And why did you want to talk with me?”

“You have . . .” Chance hesitates. There's something sharp in Rope Three's look. Rope Fourteen is listening, impassive, and Chance feels certain that he's received a warning of some kind. But Rope Fourteen has said nothing, and Rope Three is still smiling. Chance thinks about Leap telling him that he is off; that he is hallucinating.

“You have firsthand experience with drives who've died,” he says.

“I do,” says Rope Three. “And some who died very shortly after the join.”

“That's why I came over to talk with you last night,” Chance says.

Rope Three's smile is warm, comforting. “You want to know what it's like to die,” he says.

“Yes, for a drive to die.”

“Yes,” says Rope Three. “Of course, your new Five will not die. He's joined. He's part of you now. But his old body”—Rope Three shrugs—“it doesn't matter, does it? As a doctor you know that. You're going to be fine. Yes, it isn't fully integrated yet. Yes, it doesn't feel fully independent, as your other drives do. But you're aware that your anxiety is from the drive's body intelligence. You don't fully understand the drive yet. You're not fully abstracted from it. So you fear something will be lost.”

“Yes,” says Chance. “That's how I feel.”

“It's unnerving to fear death. Our relationship with death is complicated.”

“Yes.”

“Now it's almost as if you've forgotten it,” says Rope Three.

Rope Fourteen says, “But it hasn't forgotten you.”

Chance is surprised by the switch to Rope Fourteen. Fourteen's voice is measured, deliberate. “In my home,” he says, “the unenlightened see joining as a kind of predation. The consumption of a soul by a demon. They can't imagine the continued existence of every individual in a join. Joining can be a very difficult topic for ferals. Many of them—in the context of their religious dogma—believe true mortality should be preserved.”

“Yes, I've heard that,” says Chance.

“But, of course, that's foolish,” says Rope Three. “An opinion rooted in ignorance.”

“Still,” begins Rope Fourteen.

“I, personally, do have a problem—” continues Rope Three.

“With our immortality.” Rope Fourteen finishes the thought. Smoothly switching drives in midsentence can seem showy. It's difficult to match intonation and inflection, to make the sentence sound as though it's being spoken naturally, but Rope does it effortlessly, in a way that adds emphasis but seems perfectly natural.

“The problem that I have, at its core, its fundamental essence, isn't with me,” Rope Three says. “It's not about my existence.”

“It's with you,” says Rope Fourteen. “The ‘other.'”

“In the beginning,” Rope Three says, “when Join was first introduced, and for a long time after, I assumed we'd all join. That we'd all become one single individual. Can you imagine that? No more other. No more competition. The largest category of risk for our species—the risk of competitive self-destruction—effectively zeroed out.”

The waitress arrives, not Apple One but a tall, fair-skinned woman with short dark hair and straight bangs. Chance doesn't recognize her. He guesses that Rope Fourteen has used his retinal screens to order on the net. But the waitress doesn't ask who wanted what. She sets the plates down—an omelet in front of Rope Fourteen, fruit and yogurt for Rope Three, the turmeric bear claw for Chance. Chance gets the doppio; Rope Fourteen has drip coffee; Rope Three has green tea.

“Anything else?” the waitress asks Chance.

“No, thank you,” he says.

Chance lifts his doppio, blows on it to cool it. Takes a sip. Rope Three nods at him and has a bit of the fruit and yogurt, blueberries and chunks of strawberry. He apparently enjoys it. He has another bite and smiles at Chance.

Chance takes a second drink of his doppio. He has an incipient perception that something significant has happened. He doesn't speak. He tries to clear his mind, to coax it forward.

Rope Three leans toward him, across the table. “But in the last couple of decades”—he picks up the thread of his earlier thought—“the science has really started clearing up, hasn't it? So we know there's no conceivable way to do a completely safe join above one hundred. In fact, with our current understanding we can really only manage about twenty safely.” He sits back and sips his tea. Chance's doppio is delicious. Rope Fourteen has already finished half his omelet. He doesn't appear to be listening.

“So there will always be an other,” Rope Three says. “That is my problem. That is why I am disappointed.” He draws the last word out slowly, then says, “I am moved to change the situation.”

The avuncular smile again. “I sound like a diodrama villain, don't I?” he asks.

Chance is surprised by the question. “Why a villain?”

“Well, obviously . . .” It's Rope Fourteen who replies, his mouth full. He swallows his bite of omelet. “I like to kill drives.” His gaze is hungry.

Chance is not hungry and is regretting the meeting. “I think this is more than I was expecting,” he says.

“Very likely,” says Rope Three.

“I don't know where you're going with this,” Chance says. “I just wanted to ask about—my situation.”

“Yes, I guessed that, Chance,” says Rope Three. “And so I put together a demonstration that I hope will help you.”

As he had the night before, Chance feels the prickling of fear. Something about Rope is broken. Chance has seen pathological joins. He's treated a few. Chance says, “Apple told me you might have used a fixative.”

Both Ropes regard him placidly. Rope Three says, “That would be illegal. And dangerous. If Apple said that, she shouldn't have.”

“I didn't believe it when she said it.”

“Thank you,” say both Ropes, in unison.

“But I do think something is going on with you.”

“Oh,” says Rope Three, amused. “You want to treat me?”

Chance takes a deep breath. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I think meeting you here may have been a mistake. I'm going to leave.” But he doesn't move. It's not the fear, exactly. It's something closer to curiosity, but of a strange, riveting variety, almost like weight in his limbs. As if it's becoming difficult to move.

“Please,” Rope Three extends a hand. Chance watches it move toward him. “I'm sorry. I just think it's important that we be honest with each other. I don't think what I said should surprise you. Apple told you about me, didn't she? I kill my drives. But don't worry, it's perfectly okay.”

That's not what the literature says, but Chance nods anyway, though it's difficult.

“You might not have completely believed what Apple told you,” Rope Fourteen says, “but it's true. There's more to it, though. I'm very well connected. I have friends on Vitalcorp's board. So I don't worry about Vitalcorp, about the Directorate.” He waits for a response. Chance nods.

“You're concerned that the fear of your Five dying may destabilize your join,” Rope Three says. “Maybe start a pathological depression. But that's not all. There are things you haven't told anyone. You've been working your other drives hard recently, skipping sleep. You decided a few years ago to join with a few younger drives. But you haven't been doing a good job of saving money to make that happen, have you? So, instead, you've been working harder. Taking extra shifts. You're taking risks. You've fatigued your drives. You've been stressing yourself so much that you're not thinking clearly. And now you're sick, which makes it worse. Right, Chance?”

Rope Fourteen says, “Go ahead, Chance. Tell me the truth. That's what we're doing here, having a heart-to-heart, remember?”

On the airplane, Chance and
Leap have flown into a gust of ferocious turbulence. They're both focused on their displays. Leap is quickly sifting through metrics. Autonomy, the guidance system, is making suggestions.

“Chance,” Leap calls.

They're hitting air pockets, and the cockpit is noisy. Atmospheric particulate levels are showing a dramatic shift, and a cold front they've been tracking is shifting in their direction. They're definitely heading into a storm, but it's spinning up more quickly than it should be. They're also getting unusual electromagnetic readings. Things just don't look right. They need a new plan, a new route.

“Whadda you think?” Leap's been asking about an alternate route suggested on the shared display. Autonomy is waiting for approval. “Are we gonna take it? C'mon, cowboy!”

Chance isn't doing what she should be doing. She's not splitting her attention effectively. Something is wrong in the restaurant. Chance Three's perceptions aren't right. All of Chance is focused on Chance Three. In her pod by the reflecting pool, Chance Four is completely still, her dark eyes unfocused.

The plane rocks. Leap shouts, “Dammit, do something!” But Chance doesn't respond.

Autonomy says, “The cockpit stress level is above the recommended threshold. Both drives present appear potentially compromised. Protocol S-Nine, initiated.”

“Fuck that,” Leap says. “I'm overriding.” She does. Chance doesn't respond to the urgent request for confirmation. It subsides. Leap's the captain now. She growls, “Goddammit, Chance! Shit. I'm not having an S-Nine on my record.”

Chance notices her display changing as Leap accepts a new, less-volatile route through the storm. The plane banks starboard, drops suddenly through an air pocket, shudders massively. Chance bounces against her restraints. There are loud banging noises. Starboard, a twister might actually be forming.

Flustered, Chance loosens up. Joins
express themselves through drives in much the same way that solos express themselves using their limbs, their bodies. And, like limbs, in familiar situations drives may operate without much conscious oversight. An analogy is often made to a “flow” state, in which solos perform practiced activities with a speed that doesn't allow for conscious interference. A person running multiple drives can put distance between the awareness of the join and one or more drives, allowing the drives to run semiautonomously, in a join-specific analog of a flow state.

Faced with two situations that require urgent attention, Chance does this reflexively, focusing awareness and jumping back and forth in bursts between Chance Two, in the airplane, and Chance Three, in the restaurant, leaving Chance Four in a kind of trance and Chance One and Five asleep.