TWENTY

You had me sequenced.” Carr felt the screen drop from his fingers, onto the bedspread. Shock and anger crawled over him in a wave of hot and cold. Had she saved a bloody towel after one of his fights? Her panties after they’d had sex? “You can’t sequence someone without their permission, not without a police order. It’s against privacy laws.”

“You have the gall to lecture me about what’s legal?” Risha cried. “Terran privacy laws don’t apply here.”

“But why? Why did you do it?”

She stared at him with parted lips, her face reddening. With a noise between a strangled cry and a bark of laughter, she flung the thinscreen at him. He didn’t move; it hit him square in the chest and fell to the floor. Risha was on her feet. “Because I was serious about you! I thought we might … we might get married.” Her voice stumbled over the last word as if it were a sharp stone. She blinked fiercely. “It’s typical for a Martian considering marriage to check her partner’s genetic profile before signing a contract. And I would have signed fifteen years with you, Carr. Twenty, even. I was that sure.”

“And now?” His tongue felt numb as he formed the words.

She picked up the screen from the floor and read, in a wavering voice: “‘Summary: Subject is a Terran male of mixed ethnic ancestry. Physical and mental risk factors are low. Chromosomal add-ons are present. Evidence of advanced germline modification indicates physiological and/or cognitive enhancements that fall outside of standard ranges and may preclude the subject from legal status, government benefits, and certain areas of employment under the Bremen Accord (consult each government’s laws as appropriate).’” Her fingers shook and she dropped the screen again. “You didn’t think this was something you should have told me?”

His words tumbled out in a rush. “Yes, I should have, but I didn’t know. The official genetic profile filed when I was born is a fake.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means a very clever splice dealer went to the trouble of designing me and hiding what I was, even from me. By the time I learned the truth, I was already fighting pro, I’d already met you … what could I do?”

“When? When did you find out?”

“When I went to visit my mom on Earth, right after the title fight was announced.”

“That was over a year ago.”

“I know.”

“So you’ve been lying to me ever since.” Risha’s throat moved as if she were having difficulty swallowing. “I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. I thought it was some issue between you and your mom, not … anything as bad as this … ”

He felt as though her words were carving a hole out of the center of his chest. “I’m still the same person,” he said. “I always have been.”

She shook her head, strands of black hair plastering to moist cheeks. “That person is a lie. I built the entire brand of Carr Luka around a story that isn’t true. I told millions of people that you owed your success to natural talent and hard work, not to genetic enhancement. It’s illegal for you to even compete.” The gravity of her last words staggered her like a physical blow and she slumped back against the wall, her face ashen. In a quiet, horrified voice, she said, “I staked my whole career on you.”

Hot, acid defensiveness rose and spilled out of Carr. “Your whole career? You might have helped tell a lie, but I’m the one trapped inside it. What would you have had me do? Tell me! Pull out of the title fight and go to the cops? Destroy everything you and I had worked for? The ship you set us on was flying so high, so fast, I couldn’t stop it. We would have lost everything.”

“We will anyways,” she said, shoulders curled in dismay.

“No one will find out,” he insisted, though the memory of Detective Van and his mother’s call pushed into his mind like ragged splinters. “My profile looks clean and no normal screening will pick up anything unusual. What you just did—sequencing me behind my back—isn’t legal on Earth and wouldn’t ever be admissible evidence.”

“So you’re going to keep trying to get away with it? You’re cheating, Carr. That’s what the ZGFA will decide.”

“Cheating?” He wished she’d slapped him instead. He’d barely even let himself think of the word, much less say it out loud. It tasted all wrong in his mouth, rancid and poisonous. “Cheating is when someone takes shortcuts to give himself an unfair advantage. I haven’t done that, Risha. I put in my time and blood and sweat like anyone else in the Cube. I was born what I am, same as anyone else.”

“That’s not how Terran law will see it.”

“I know that!” He took a trembling step forward, fingernails digging into his palms. He wanted to grab and shake her. “God, I know that. But I can’t rip out my DNA. How can I fight what I am?”

He couldn’t. Even if he could, he wouldn’t want to. That was Rhystok’s brilliant criminal insight. For as much as people feared the specter of enhancement, the threat of superhumans, the terrible consequences of breeding mankind, they desired and celebrated the extraordinary. Carr understood this in the very core of his being.

Risha dropped her face into her hands. He reached for her, wanting, despite his anger, to pull her into his arms. For a moment, she seemed to soften, to lean into him, but then she set her jaw and pushed away, her face grim. “You didn’t choose to be what you are, but don’t tell me you’re innocent. You chose to keep competing after you found out, and you chose not to tell me. You never gave me a choice. You trapped me, the way you were trapped, and you would never have told me. Never.”

“I meant to. I did, but—” His words came out rough, as if he were choking down gravel. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

Risha squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. “That’s not your decision.” She stumbled around him and toward the door.

He caught her by the wrist, his hand encircling it. “Don’t. Please. There’s more I need to tell you. And this tournament … we both know it’s grown beyond being just about zeroboxing.”

She looked down at his hand and back up to his face. Her eyes were like polished opaque mirrors, already receding from him. A small, sad voice inside of him admonished, You knew this moment would come. On the ship, after floating together and kissing, when she’d promised he could tell her anything, he’d known this moment would come. It was every bit as painful as he’d imagined it to be.

“Let go of me, Carr,” she said.

He was much stronger than she was. She could cry and hit him until she exhausted herself, and he could hold on.

He let his fingers fall open. “Risha,” he said, “I love you.”

She left anyways.