It has been four hours since Mark and Pat Sutcliffe returned home. They work in silence, solemn, unresponsive to the noise and jubilation outside. Their war is not over because Alyssa is missing still.
In their absence the house has been looted, stripped clean of possessions and vandalised, but not burned down like some on the street, and not hit by bombs. Mark is one to count his blessings. Pat is alive, well, if a little thin, and more grown up than he would have liked. She sweeps, he carries the heavy stuff. The plan for today is to clear a simple sleeping space for the two of them, then tomorrow, they will continue to work. There is some food, meagre, but hunger-breaking. The things Mark fears are the roving rats, the swarms, but since the new incarnation of the alien, they seem to have retreated, as have the droppers, and nobody has spotted a cherub in a long while.
He glances at Pat, pained by her shorn hair and her thin look. He knows he himself is much thinner, and his hair is just as short. Lice.
He’ll have to find a way to secure the property. The last few weeks have been spent on the move, keeping himself and his daughter safe, sometimes by hiding, sometimes by alliances and joining groups. Mark has done violence for the first time in his life, finding a vein of savagery he did not know possible, and at times his dreams are full of blood and choking. He does not know if he will ever pick up a brush to paint without pain spilling out, but maybe that’s a good thing.
How will his daughter learn to be a child again? Will she smile? Will she laugh?
“Hey, Pat, on what side does a chicken have the most feathers?” he asks.
“On the outside,” says a voice from the door, the last thing either Mark or Pat is expecting.
Alyssa.
Alyssa.
From the xenosphere, Alyssa watches the family reunited, watches them hug each other and cry, watches them close the door on the outside world and start living their lives again.
The Alyssa in there is as real as she can get. All the memories she could scavenge are in her. Alyssa’s ID chip is in her. They will think her traumatised or just confused, and they will make excuses for her lapses.
She does not know why she has done this. Guilt? A sense of justice? Over-identification with Aminat and Kaaro?
It matters little. This is the simplest solution to the simplest problem, and that niggling thought, that feeling of unease is gone.
Now she can focus on her work, on Rosewater, the first new Homian city in centuries.
She makes herself visible outside the prison, just as Jack Jacques opens the door. He smiles, standing a little awkwardly on his new prosthesis.
“I can fix that leg for you,” says Alyssa. “Grow you a new one in less than an hour.”
“Thank you, but no thanks,” says Jack. Then he thinks, You’ll fuck it up and my knee will bend backwards or something.
“That was Anthony, not me,” says Alyssa, but she lets it pass.
“Would you like to come with me?”
Aminat is on his entourage and she winks to Alyssa. The rest are armed personnel wearing opaque visors. Alyssa is aware they are connected to a high-altitude drone that bears explosive weapons.
Jacques keeps up a monologue. “Most sections of the prison are empty because the prisoners were released to fight in the insurrection, but J-wing was always special.”
On the walkway, standing arms akimbo, is Hannah Jacques.
Jack says, “Honey, what are you doing?”
“I’ll get to you later. For now, I have words for this person.”
Alyssa seems patient. “Speak.”
“You haven’t saved your planet or your people. Those of you who survived should have stayed in the space stations. What you’ve done instead is commit mass suicide. The mind is an illusion, a hologram generated by the body. What you’ve encoded is memory, and personhood is not just memories. Personhood is embodied.
“Your billions are dead and what you have, what you are, is a new type of human. This exercise of yours is an expensive memory project, and all you’ve saved is your culture.”
“We’re just trying to stay alive, Mrs. Jacques. Any kind of life will do. You would act the same if our positions were reversed.”
“I can’t convince you to withdraw?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then kara o le. We will meet again.” Hannah strides off.
Alyssa continues along the walkway.
There are thousands of reanimates, some still, some milling, all with that empty-vessel feel in the xenosphere. Alyssa walks to the centre of the catwalk and enters the xenosphere. First she finds the exact number of reanimates, which turns out to be twenty-one thousand and sixteen. She queries for Lua and waits till she receives a response.
[transmission commences… ]
[error checking… ]
[stand by]
Alyssa loses contact with Lua for a minute, then the contact is restored, but different. It is now down among the reanimates. Alyssa jumps from the walkway to the floor. The reanimates all have awareness and self-consciousness now.
“Welcome to Earth; welcome to Rosewater,” says Jack Jacques, arms spread out in welcome. Alyssa is annoyed—she had wanted to say that, had wanted the first voice they heard to be a Homian one.
“I am Alyssa, the first, the footholder. We have much to discuss. Come.”
Scores of prison workers guide the newcomers to medical, for registration and a check-up.
Alyssa’s work is just beginning, but it is the beginning of the end.