So it was phrased in a silly old cartoon about a real shithead who fought in World War II and sounded like Bugs Bunny and somehow never got himself killed. The phrase is bouncing around my head as I slide in and out of stupor. We are in the situation that prevails.
I hate sleeping in zero g. One can only hang on to wire for so long, before your fingers cramp and you let go and bounce off whatever’s nearby. If it’s another Skyrine, or Borden, they shove or kick you away, usually without even waking up.
But in zero g, I don’t dream much—at least not here. One doesn’t dream inside a dream, right? Maybe all I’ve been living through since I left Madigan is just another Guru instauration, and when I wake up I’ll be back in my apartment in Virginia Beach, getting ready to take my car out for a squeal, maybe drive to Williamsburg for kidney pie and some old-fashioned, cozy history. Real history. Has human history ever been real? How long has this shit been going on? Looks like a long, long time. Lots of wars.
Have to ask: Which war was the most popular, ratings-wise?
I open my eyes and find myself looking through the mesh into Bird Girl’s four purple-rimmed peepers. She’s floating steady on the other side, watching me, just waiting, quiet inside and out—letting me enjoy my restless doze.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Forward. All of you. All of us. Through maze and fake eye shit.” She’s getting creative with her English.
“There’s bad attitude brewing,” I say.
“Brewing? Like beer?”
“Yeah, bad beer. We’re not going to put up with being lowly assholes anymore. If the starshina is valuable to you, we want equality. Knowledge. Concessions. We have memories of dead friends, too. Tell your commanders that.”
Long fucking speech, but inside it takes just instants and there are actually fewer words. More like thought balloons filled with emojis. That’s the way it is, here in the land of deep mind-fuck. The madder one gets, the more the word balloons simplify.
But Bird Girl and I are closely enough related both in ancestry and employment that the message is clear. And when I look back at the others, watching my interaction with the Antag, I see they’re awake and alert and have lined up in combat order. Borden and Joe and Litvinov and Jacobi are at the tip of a fighting formation, holding one another’s hands like they’re going steady. Wonder of wonders, we’re together.
I try to find Ulyanova. There she is, in the charge of Ishida and Vera. Sisterhood of power. Cool to see, and cool to see that our starshina is neither weepy nor green.
Bird Girl brings her four eyes back to mine.
“I will say it,” she tells me, and then moves off back into the darkness of the squash court. I see her shadow exit the cube.
A while later, she and three of the armored commanders return. Bird Girl says, out loud, “We join. No bad beer, right?”
I look back at our officers.
Joe and Borden say, simultaneously, “Agreed.”
Litvinov says, “Agree.”
The translator buzzes.
The cage door opens.
“All?” I ask.
“All,” she says. “Keep together.”
“Where are we going?”
“Forward. We will bring Keepers.”
“And the connection?”
“Connection and Keepers. They will tell us Keeper thoughts.”
“Right,” I say. Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it? I have no idea how Ulyanova is going to respond, how she’ll involve me, or how precise and efficient she’ll be. We’re all new to this.