Karen sat in the waiting room of the Christchurch clinic, face pale and drawn from lack of sleep. It had been thirty hours since she discovered her husband’s body, and still there was no word from technicians about the implant.
Her chair was opposite a window. Outside, the streets of Christchurch were filled with people, many in Hexamon uniforms, many Terrestrial citizens, thronging around the hospital. News of the evacuation had arrived less than half an hour ago; she worried now that her husband’s condition would be of no importance whatsoever in the middle of this enormously greater crisis, that they would both be forgotten.
She glanced at her hands. Despite scrubbing in the hospital lavatory, she saw there was still an overlooked speck of dried blood under her index fingernail. She focused on that speck—her husband’s blood—and closed her-eyes. The memories would not go away: opening up his neck, digging for the implant, slipping it into a pocket and zipping the pocket shut, driving along the dark roads in a balky ATV with the body and the implant into Twizel, all taking hours. After the sky had cleared, a shuttle had flown her into Christchurch.
The body, useless, had stayed in Twizel.
The issues were far from clear to her.
They had spent so many years together, and so few years, in comparison, growing apart…Their time coming together again had been so brief.
Humans are made for sorrow. We are not made for answers or certainties.
A technician—not the same one she had given the implant to—came through the door of the waiting room, glanced around until he saw her, and set his jaw grimly, a professional expression that indicated trouble. She raised her eyebrows, lips forming an expectant O.
“Mrs. Lanier?”
She gave the slightest nod.
“Are you sure the implant came from your husband?”
Karen stared at him. “I’m sure. I…took it from him myself.”
The technician spread his hands and glanced at the window.
“He’s dead?” she asked suddenly.
“The implant doesn’t contain your husband, Mrs. Lanier. There’s a personality, but it’s female, not male. We have no record of this personality in our files…. We don’t know who she is. She’s complete, however—”
“What are you talking about?” Karen asked.
“If the implant is from your husband, I don’t see—”
She stood and almost screamed, “Tell me what has happened!”
The technician shook his head quickly, intensely embarrassed and uncomfortable. “There’s a young woman in the implant, about twenty-one years old. She seems to have been out of action—stored—for some time, maybe twenty years; she doesn’t have any memory of contemporary events. She certainly wasn’t downline loaded recently. Her coding—”
“That’s impossible,” Karen said. “Where’s my husband?”
“I don’t know. Are you acquainted with anyone named Andia?”
“What?”
“Andia. This woman’s ID lists that name.”
“She was our daughter,” Karen said, the blood draining from her face. She half-sat, and supported herself with one hand on the back of the chair. “What happened to my husband?”
“We haven’t done more than an initial query. The only personality in the implant claims that her name is Andia. I have no idea what happened to your husband.”
Karen sat heavily, shaking her head. “How? She’s been dead—missing—twenty years…”
The technician shrugged his shoulders slightly, helpless.
“Garry…they made him wear the implant.” She straightened in the chair. This was not reality; this was beyond anything she had ever dreamed, hope or nightmare: to regain her daughter at the expense of her husband, through some miracle or perverse trick. “He beat them at their own game.” But he couldn’t have done it alone. She looked up at the technician, determined not to shake herself apart. Her arms and lower legs felt as if they carried a mild electric current. She had to stand and move around or she would faint. She stood carefully, slowly, letting the blood flow back to where it was needed, willing herself to be calm and not get sick. Something had to be said; she had to react in some rational way.
“May I speak to her?”
“I’m sorry. Not until we’re able to expand her storage. She won’t be lucid until then. Your daughter is a Terrestrial citizen?”
Karen followed the technician into the hospital records area and answered his questions. With some searching, the old inactive legal records were recovered. Personality maps taken during the installation of Andia’s implant were compared.
They matched perfectly.
“The only word I can think of is miracle,” the technician said. Obviously, he did not believe her story; he had not removed the implant himself. “I’ll have to arrange for a legal inquiry.”
She nodded, numb now from head to toe despite her determination to stay calm. She felt cast adrift, isolated between horror and sorrow and wonder and hope. I’ve lost Garry and found our daughter. There was only one way that could be explained.
She had never been raised to believe in forces higher than humankind. Her upbringing had been strictly Marxist; the solace of religion was not available to her. Yet now she could think only of Mirsky, and what he might represent.
If you have him, please take care of him, she thought, addressing her message to the Russian, and to the forces beyond the avatar. And thank you for my daughter.
She waited alone in a small side room for an hour while the doctors and technicians tried to make their way through the maze of procedure and law. For a few minutes, she dozed off into a blank void. When the technician returned and awoke her, she felt much stronger; her numbness had passed.
“We’ll arrange for a reincarnation—she’s entitled,” the technician said. “That may take time, though. We’re going to be extremely busy here for the next few weeks, maybe months. We’ve been told to prepare our clinic for an emergency. Every available shuttle is going to be tied up for the foreseeable future, and all vehicles, too. I think I can arrange to have a medical shuttle take you home, however, if you leave in the next hour or so…”
She waved her hand, dismissing his offer. She had nothing to do at home. “I’d rather stay here. If I can be of any help.”
“I suppose you can,” the technician said, still dubious. “We’ve gone through your records—sorry, but there was an element of uncertainty here…. None of us can figure out what happened…” He shook his head. “Your daughter was lost at sea. There’s no way you could have her implant, and not your husband’s.”
She smiled a dismayed, sad smile and nodded.
“Are you going to be all right?”
She thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to speak with my daughter, as soon as possible…”
“Of course,” the technician said. “I suggest you sleep in the infirmary for a while. We’ll call you.”
“Thank you,” she said. She looked around the room and prepared to lie down on an examination table.
Andia.