part0019

“Manuel?” said Noa as the door slammed behind her. She shivered, and not just because the Manuels seemed to have set the air conditioning too high. James grabbed her arm and pulled her back. From outside the house she heard the sound of breaking glass, and the slightest band of blue-white light peeking through the curtains disappeared. She heard loud footsteps over the sound of her heart, and almost immediately heard a Guardsman say, “You there, what are you doing? It’s past curfew!”

Inside, a woman’s voice whispered, “Grandmother, are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” Eliza whispered back.

Beyond the door, Noa heard Manuel say, “My porch light was blinking … broke the damn thing trying to replace it.”

The Guard’s voice went from accusing to solicitous. “Do you need help?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

A second later, yellow light broke between the cracks in the curtain. The Guard said, “There you go. Just to follow procedure, may I see your identification?”

“Of course,” said Manuel.

“This way, all of you,” the woman whispered. Noa turned and saw a slender woman with long straight hair who must be Dr. Hisha Manuel. She was leading 6T9 to what looked like a small cluttered kitchen.

As he entered the kitchen just behind Noa, James muttered dryly, “I hope that they don’t invite the Guard in for milk and cookies.” Noa gave him a sidelong smile, but he was looking away from her.

“That would be crazy,” the woman whispered.

“Crazy like a fox,” said Eliza.

6T9 growled. “My silver fox.”

Hisha dropped her hand from the ‘bot’s arm. “You’re not her grandson?” Hisha asked in a cautious voice.

Gently setting Eliza down by a chair, 6T9 said cheerfully, “No, I am her personal cybernetic consort.”

The hand that hadn’t been on 6T9’s arm fluttered to Hisha’s chest. She looked between Noa, James, 6T9, and Eliza, swallowing audibly. The woman sidled to the sink. “My husband will be back in just a moment, Commander.” Looking away from Noa, she washed her hands in the sink—concentrating on the hand that had touched 6T9 … which … sadly, Noa sort of understood. Touching a walking, talking, sex toy was a little disquieting, although she knew intellectually sex ‘bots were programmed to practice scrupulous hygiene. Her eyes flitted to the ‘bot. He didn’t seem to have noticed the slight. Despite herself, Noa still felt for him. Which was why ‘bots were so dangerous. Worrying about ‘bots distracted people from worrying about their fellow humans.

The front door slammed, and Noa breathed out a sigh of relief when she heard only Manuel’s footsteps hurriedly coming down the hall. Standing straighter, Noa stepped forward. “I’m sorry about your loss,” she said, before anything else. Manuel raised his chin. When Tim had died, Noa had felt empty … afloat. Manuel looked angry, and something else; she couldn’t put her finger on it.

The engineer hadn’t changed much in the past few years. His hair had gone gray at the temples. It was longer, too. She noted it flopped over the spot where his neural interface was. He was sporting about three days’ worth of stubble; but he was still in decent shape, as was his wife, who was a doctor. She could be useful. And they would be motivated to help her … if Noa had correctly surmised the reason for their son’s death.

“You have a plan, Commander?” Manuel said.

“I have a plan to summon the Fleet,” Noa replied.

Smiling tightly, he said, “Commander, I hoped that you were coming to say they were on their way … that maybe by some miracle they were already on the edge of our system’s space.”

“No,” said Noa. “We have to go get them.”

Manuel’s eyes slipped to 6T9 and back to Noa. “Who is ‘we’?”

Noa didn’t flinch. “So far, only the people you see in this room—”

“ —and the ‘bot,” added Eliza hastily.

6T9 looked at Eliza. “Why are we summoning the Fleet?”

“6T9,” said Eliza. “Please shut down for now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the ‘bot said. He abruptly went silent; he’d been producing a barely audible hum, Noa realized. His eyes went dark.

Manuel looked at Noa, his forehead written with lines of concern. And then he took Hisha’s hand. They looked at each other; and, before Noa could say another word, Manuel said, “We’re in.”

“We’ll do anything,” Hisha said. There was desperation in her voice, not anger. To Noa it seemed too fast, too easy, and that didn’t feel right. But, if Manuel was going to turn them in, he would have done so already. Wouldn’t he? Noa’s eyes sought James’s, but he was looking at the ceiling. Her hands clenched at her sides. She wanted the Manuels’ help too much, but for the wrong reasons. Kenji was so close … the map of the city flashed in her visual cortex … if she could only get a chance to see him …

James said, “There’s someone upstairs,” and Noa snapped from her reverie.

“A cat!” said Hisha.

Noa’s shoulders relaxed, but then James said, “You are lying.” He stepped quickly to Noa’s side, but kept his eyes on the Manuels. She felt a warmth rising in her chest that she hadn’t felt since she’d returned to her home planet—trust—the kind of trust that only happened between comrades-at-arms.

Dipping her chin, Noa demanded, “What are you hiding?” An elaborate ruse to find out what her end game was?

It was Manuel’s turn to hold up his hands. She saw his Adam’s apple bob. “My son.”

Eliza gasped, and Noa rolled back on her feet. James tilted his head. “But the obituary … ”

“False,” said Manuel.

“But the body … ” Noa said.

Hisha spoke. “It was an animatronic—a ‘bot someone had commissioned when their child died. I knew about it. They’re illegal now so I begged it off them and then faked a death certificate. Some of my patients had their augmented children taken away, or they just vanished. Oliver would have been next.”

Manuel took a step toward Noa. “Do you understand now, why we’ll do anything?” A baby’s cry from upstairs mournfully punctuated the question. Noa’s heart sank.

James paced through the house, listening for sounds outside, and occasionally peeked through the blinds. Since their arrival, he hadn’t seen nor heard more than a cat. He also listened as Noa related her plans to Manuel. Afterward, he heard Manuel say, “Dan Chow … don’t trust him; but you’re right, he needs to leave. Since he built the system that controls the ground defenses, he’s probably the best bet to shut them down. Still, you have the Local Guard to deal with. You need weapons … ”

“I was hoping you could help with that,” said Noa.

“And,” continued Manuel, “you need more than an electrical transformer station explosion to keep the Luddeccean Guard at bay while you steal the Ark.” A transformer explosion was an idea James and Noa had floated to distract the Guard.

James padded back to the kitchen and found Noa sitting at the table with the engineer and Eliza. Eliza had fallen asleep in her seat. She was leaning against 6T9. The ‘bot was standing beside her, hand on her slumped shoulder. 6T9 was in an energy-conserving “sleep mode.” Although he was upright, his eyes were dull and dry instead of shiny and wet. James hadn’t realized how much that contributed to a life-like appearance. 6T9 was also mercifully silent.

Noa inhaled sharply. Leaning on her elbows, she said, “I know, but I don’t have a better idea.”

“I do,” Manuel responded.

Noa sat back in her seat. “What do you have in mind?”

From the front room James heard the sound of Hisha’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Protests,” said Manuel. “Some of us have been planning them even before Time Gate 8 was destroyed. I can organize a ‘spontaneous’ show of civil disobedience within days.” He waved a hand. “And we have access to weapons and explosives for those of us who will be aboard the Ark.”

“We need more engineers for the Ark,” Noa said. “A ship that size will need a crew. I’ve got a list of Fleet personnel in my data banks, but I don’t know whom to trust.”

Manuel nodded quickly. “I can find you a crew.”

At that moment, Hisha walked into the room with a child clutched in her arms. He appeared to be sleeping, his head pressed to her shoulder.

“He’s beautiful,” Noa said, although the child’s thick, fleshy face was distorted by its own weight, and one of his sagging arms was visibly cybernetic as well—plastic and steel that the Manuels hadn’t bothered to cover with synth-skin. His ‘beauty’ was subjective, James decided. He had a hazy memory of saying such things himself in the past. But he also remembered confiding in a friend that he didn’t want children because they were a “burden,” “expensive,” and “drooling pools of disease.”

Manuel slid out a chair, and Hisha’s body sagged into it, giving credence to James’s observation about children being a burden. The woman twisted her body, and James could see a dark wet stain of drool on her shoulder, giving credence to that observation as well. Manuel cleared his throat. “And my wife, she doesn’t have combat experience, but she would be useful aboard the Ark … ”

“I’m not afraid,” Hisha said quickly, her eyes getting wide. “I … would do anything … For my child, I would even kill.”

Noa looked back and forth between the couple. Her lips flattened.

“You just … you have to let us bring him,” said Manuel. “You can’t make it to the Ark without our help. You don’t know which members of the veteran’s community have fallen for the Luddeccean philosophy, you don’t know whom you can trust. I do. And you know you can trust me—” He looked at his wife, rubbed his chin, and looked back to Noa. “You can trust us.”

Noa’s chair screeched against the floor as she scooted backward. “No. Manuel, I can’t take the three of you … ” Her eyes fell on the sleeping child and up to Hisha. Her lips thinned, and she turned back to the Lieutenant. “Manuel, I’ll take you, yes … ” She looked back at Hisha. “But Hisha, you and Oliver have to stay here; you don’t want to bring your child into this.”

“I have to get him off the planet,” said Hisha, clutching the child tighter, the pitch of her voice noticeably higher. “His heart will have to be replaced in a few months! It won’t be big enough for him for very long—he’s growing so fast.”

Voice tremulous, Manuel added, “I know, best case scenario you can get to the gate in the cloud in two Luddeccean months, but who knows how long it could take for the Fleet to plan a campaign after that? It will get caught up in bureaucracy.”

Noa’s voice was soft as she replied. “You know that, when we commandeer the Ark it’s going to be bloody. If something happens to your son during the firefight, you won’t be able to focus on anything else.” Rubbing her temple, she sighed audibly. “A child will disrupt everyone’s focus.”

“I’ll sedate him,” Hisha said.

“That isn’t what I mean,” said Noa.

James’s brow rose, not sure what she did mean.

“Hisha,” Noa implored, “Please stay here, for your child’s sake.”

“We won’t have anything to remain here for, if Oliver dies,” Hisha said. “And he will die if he stays here. We know that … we will stick with the mission … even if … ” She swallowed.

Noa put her hand down too heavily on the table. She released a long breath. “I don’t like it,” Noa ground out, leaning back in her chair.

James looked between the couple and Noa, weighing their arguments. Stepping closer to Noa, he said, “We don’t have time to find another engineer … and finding a doctor was pure luck.”

Noa looked up at him sharply.

“Each time we contact someone, Noa, we put ourselves at risk for being turned in. We are better off accepting their help and the risk to their child.” He waved his hand at Oliver, still asleep on his mother’s shoulder.

Noa crossed her arms. “The risk to bring the child on the ship—and then, once he’s aboard—”

James shrugged. “If your objection is based on the risk to the child, there is no argument. He may die trying to escape; he will die if he stays here.”

He heard Hisha gulp at his words, and Manuel shifted in his chair.

“I’m not just worried about the risk to the child,” Noa snapped. “I’m worried that the child may endanger the entire crew.”

James looked at the baby. His small cybernetic hand clenched in his sleep.

“Please,” said Hisha. “We’ll work hard. We won’t let ourselves be distracted.”

“Of course you’ll be distracted!” Noa said.

Oliver stirred in his sleep, and Hisha shushed him. Eliza sank lower against 6T9’s thigh. A whirring noise came from the ‘bot’s chest for a few moments and then went silent.

Noa sighed. She cradled her elbow with one hand, and massaged her temple with the other. For three heavy minutes the only sound was Hisha patting Oliver’s back.

“He can come,” Noa said at last.

“You won’t regret it,” Hisha said.

Noa’s jaw tightened. “I do already.”

With his hyper-augmented hearing, James picked up a thud above, and then another. Dropping his hand to Noa’s shoulder, he exclaimed, “Someone is on the roof!”

Manuel cleared his throat. “Those are members of the opposition movement. I summoned them when you first arrived with the change in light bulb.”

Noa looked at him sharply. “Military?”

Smiling tightly, Manuel said, “Not even close. Kids. None over twenty-five. It would be better if you hid in another room.”

“You don’t trust them?” said James, feeling alarm flare in his mind.

Standing from the table, Manuel said, “I trust them to cause unrest. I don’t trust them to hold their tongues if they are arrested.” He looked at Noa. “The less they know about you—”

“—the better,” Noa said, standing. She looked at Manuel. “They traveled across the roofs?”

Manuel shrugged. “It’s the easiest, safest way. Even the sewers are being patrolled now.”

“Huh,” said Noa, her eyes narrowing slightly. “How far does the rooftop highway go?”

“About a quarter mile,” said Manuel.

Noa didn’t reply, but the barest hint of a smile crossed her lips. James felt his neurons alight with alarm.

Noa snapped toward 6T9. “Wake up, ‘bot, we’re moving out.” James could no longer see her face, but he could hear that same ghost of a smile in her voice.

They were so close that he could feel her breath against his cheek. Both of them were sitting next to the door to the bedroom they were hiding in, listening to the “opposition meeting” going on below. He could hear every chair squeak, every elbow on the table, and next to him he could hear Noa’s breathing, faint and raspy. Across the room, on a bed, he could hear Eliza snoring softly, with 6T9 sitting beside her in hibernation mode.

“Yes,” he said. “I can hear them very well.”

Noa took a long breath. Again James heard a slight rasp. She’d started breathing heavily when they came up the stairs.

“Hard link with me, James,” Noa said. “I want to hear, too.”

For a moment, James sat motionless. The memory of her revulsion still stung. Below them the opposition members greeted each other. He heard hands clasping, and what he was fairly certain was backs being thumped.

“I’m sorry about last time,” she said, averting her gaze. “You … reminded me of someone. It’s … strange. I’ll keep a better handle on it this time.”

James wanted to ask who, and then he realized he probably knew. The mysterious Timothy. He remembered her darting up and away from him when they’d been huddled in his parents’ cottage after he’d asked her who Timothy was. He nodded at her and retrieved the hard link, nestled next to his laptop in a small bag.

A moment later, opposite ends of the port were in each of their data drives. For a fleeting instant, Noa was unguarded. For less than a second, James could sense something, which was withdrawn and concealed quickly; then, Noa’s filtering app must have kicked in, because he could feel nothing at all. It was disquieting, and also disappointing, he couldn’t say why.

Downstairs, he heard the tone of the conversation shift, and quickly began relaying the words, exactly as he heard them … and suddenly found himself in the kitchen surrounded by medium height, slightly tan, faceless people. He blinked. The kitchen was blurry and out of focus.

Noa appeared among the faces. She was wearing her fleet uniform.

“Fleet-issued avatar for these sorts of mental conferences,” the vision of Noa said, her avatar gesturing to the mental imagery. She looked exactly as she did in his earliest memory of her. He felt the familiar thrum of want, and was glad he could hide it from her. She was so close in the mental and physical worlds.

Not party to his thoughts—or desires, literally or figuratively—Noa continued, “I’m trying to imagine exactly what’s going on.”

James looked around the blurry kitchen and filled in the details for her. The faceless opposition members he couldn’t picture—they hadn’t had a chance to see them—but he knew their genders by their voices, and their weight by the sound of their footsteps and the way the chairs sounded as they slid across the floor. So he filled in those sparse details, too. An instant later, the mental image of the kitchen was exactly as he remembered it, and the tan placeholder people had more human appearance.

Noa’s avatar shook her head. “Of course, you’ve got that holographic memory app running, you would remember everything.” Her avatar walked through one of the opposition leaders and bent down to look at the table. “I can’t believe you remembered the wood grain, though.” Straightening, her avatar looked around. “This is amazing.” She backed away from the table, where the constructs of the opposition leaders were drinking and complimenting the food.

“Don’t you have an avatar?” Noa’s avatar asked him.

“Several,” he said, activating his avatar app.

Noa blinked—or, her avatar did.

James let his avatar look down at itself. His mental persona was wearing what he’d wear to a lecture hall—high-necked long silver jacket with patched elbows, black trousers, and polished shoes.

Noa laughed, or her avatar did, and she was exactly the image of the healthy vibrant woman from James’s memory. “Patches on your elbows? Of course … I forgot. You’re a history professor! For a moment there … ” She looked around the mental space. “Well, I’ve only seen this sort of detail in internal ‘scapes created for military ops, or in history class.”

James shrugged. Since the opposition leaders were still talking about things that didn’t seem terribly important, he changed the scene to the interior of 10 Downing Street, residence of the Prime Minister of England. He gave it the décor that it sported during Margaret Thatcher’s administration.

“Amazing,” Noa’s avatar said again, taking in the antiquated furnishings. She let an emotion sift through. Emotions from another person over a hard link were like seeing an image through fog. Not as powerful as an emotion that belonged to yourself, but somehow more rewarding than hard data. He felt his real lips in the physical world want to curl up. She was feeling wonder. Although he couldn’t smile, his avatar could and did. Noa’s avatar beamed back at him. “And it’s nice to see you smile.”

In the physical realm, he touched the side of his face. “It is nice to be able to smile.” She walked over to the desk and peered down at it. “No wood grain.”

James tilted his head. “Nothing before the fall is as clear.”

Noa’s avatar looked up at him, brow furrowed. “The fall … ”

James changed the scene, and Noa shrieked as they fell down past the Ponderosa pines. She jumped at the ‘impact,’ and he switched the scene to a generic white room.

“It was a miracle you didn’t die,” she whispered. “With the organ damage you would have received … they had to augment you.”

A miracle? To James, something felt off with that assessment, and he felt a chill race along the neurons beneath his skin. Down below, he heard Manuel explaining, “So I said that I used the signal for a reason … ” and he changed the scene back to the kitchen. Noa’s avatar turned and gazed on the generic avatars of the opposition with laser-like focus. Manuel told the opposition that they needed to stage protests before rapid DNA testing was the norm—which James thought was a weak premise for a hasty gathering of forces—but the opposition ate it up. When it was over, and the “guests” were leaving, Noa made him replay the conversations that occurred while they had been distracted. As Manuel and Hisha were saying their goodbyes, Noa’s avatar whispered in his mind, “We’d better unlink. I get the feeling that Manuel and Hisha would be scandalized if they found us hard linking in their house.” She winked and smiled. Considering her revulsion, James didn’t find it funny. Maybe due to his lack of reaction to the joke, or her own distaste for him, Noa yanked out her link too quickly for comfort. Just before their link was severed, James sensed her concealing something again. Winding the cord around his hand, he wondered, was it just revulsion she was hiding, or something else?

Standing quickly, Noa took a deep breath and slipped out the door. Tucking the cord away, James followed. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he felt the world shrinking and growing dark at the edges. He heard Noa ask, “A hidden stairwell?”

At her words, his world came into focus again. Manuel was standing at the end of the hallway by a floor-to-ceiling block of shelves loaded with toys, physical books, and replicas of starships. It was situated at a forty-five degree angle, like a door ajar.

Manuel shook his head. “No, not really. This house is so small, I tried to utilize every bit of space efficiently.” He pulled on one side of the shelf, and the unit opened fully to the steep stairwell beyond. “It wouldn’t be a good place to hide. All the townhomes are built to the same plan, and any patrol searching places would know there’s a hidden space behind the shelves, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Nah,” said Noa. “I was just admiring your handiwork.” She peered into the space beyond, and played with the door herself, opening and closing it. “Nice workmanship. No squeaky hinges for you.”

Manuel snorted. “I am an engineer.”

Noa tapped his shoulder with a fist. “You think this is small after living on a starship?”

Face visibly flushing, Manuel mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Her brow furrowed, and she said, “You said that any patrol would know that this space was here—but you have piles of rope, a rope ladder, and climbing equipment?” James’s world began to get dark again. He heard Manuel reply, “That is part of our fire safety evacuation kit. We’re responsible parents, Commander.” James could no longer see the equipment; the hallway became progressively darker and more blurry, tunneling into a narrower and narrower frame. He remembered a snippet of innocuous conversation a few minutes before. When Hisha had asked the visitors if they were hungry, one had said, “I’m so hungry, I feel like my stomach is eating itself.” Like a chain reaction, that memory sparked others from before the fall. He’d made similar statements on occasion and had felt that sensation before. The room felt suddenly very cold, although the temperature had not dropped. Suddenly he found it was a struggle to stand upright.

“Are you alright?” Manuel said, his concerned face blurry on the periphery of James’s vision.

“I’m starving,” he said. But he felt the hunger in his mind, not his body, and he knew that was very wrong.

Noa opened her eyes to darkness, in the too-chill house. She was lying on the floor in the spare bedroom, a blanket thrown over her. Tomorrow, she’d meet her crew. In 48 hours’ time, they’d be in space, bound for the Kanakah Cloud and the hidden time gate. The most important thing she could do right now, before all that excitement, was sleep. She sat up anyway.

Her eyes slid toward James. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed. Illuminated by a single beam of a fluorescent street lamp slanting through a crack in the blinds, his skin appeared blue. Maybe it was that bluish cast, the fact that his lips were fuller than Timothy’s, the slightly aquiline curve of his nose, or the delicate wing-like shape of his eyebrows, but he looked more Japanese than Caucasian. His eyelids didn’t flutter as Noa gazed down at him.

She took a deep breath—and felt as though she’d barely breathed at all. Jitters, maybe? Or apprehension? As a fighter pilot, she’d participated in clearing the asteroid belt of System 6. The fire power of the carrier that played base to the fighter squadrons hadn’t been at all useful in the tight conditions of Six’s belt. Worse, the asteroid minerals dampened drone sensors; so, human pilots had to go in. When a squadron went in for a sweep between the densely packed asteroids and the pirates, it was pretty much guaranteed that only two-thirds would come back out.

In those sorts of conditions, pilots began developing rituals before each mission. Noa would kiss Timothy on the cheek three times before she left. She would perform the sign of the cross although she was only Christian by heritage. Then she would slip her wedding rings in a tiny carbon fiber envelope that she tucked into the left pocket of the under layer she wore under her g-suit. Once, after thirty-six missions, after she’d slipped her rings into that pocket, Timothy had kissed her an extra time. She’d taken her rings out, put them back on her fingers, and went through the ritual all over again. The protection such rituals gave might have only been mental—but that didn’t make them any less important. She fiddled with the stumps of her fingers.

As important as ritual was the people on your team. She took a breath and bit her lip. During the System 6 campaign, she’d piloted a six-person bomber. Like everyone, she was expected to fly thirty-two missions. But during mission seven, she’d sustained a third-degree burn that melted her skin and locked her elbow. While she’d recovered, her first crew continued to fly. They’d been shot down during the first mission without her. Her next crew was fresher than Noa. When she’d finished her thirty-two missions, they still had seven more to do. They begged her to stay on because she was their “lucky credit.” She’d been so afraid … but she stayed on as their pilot. Tim had been furious.

Her eyes slid to James. He’d been part of her crew for a while now. Mentally, she’d begun to depend on him being there. She took another deep breath that felt shallow and sounded weak. She’d been depending on him physically as well. She remembered every time he’d literally pulled her out of a jam. She was afraid ... but she had to do this alone.

Carefully pushing aside her blanket, she grabbed the small bag she was using as a pillow, and padded to the doorway and out into the hall. She was wearing the clothing she’d worn when she’d arrived at the Manuels’ house, so there was no need to change. She slipped to the bookshelf door, opened it silently, and crept into the claustrophobic closet-like room beyond. Opening her backpack, she pulled out a flashlight she’d brought along, flipped it on to the lowest setting, and found the rope ladder and coil of rope. Hoisting it over her shoulder, she began to climb the stairs. At the top she found herself winded and silently cursing the camp. She’d once been so fit. Gritting her teeth, she undid the lock. Turning off her flashlight, she opened the door, slipped out onto the roof, and waited for her vision to adjust. The night was warmer than the townhome and she found herself almost sighing with pleasure. Luddeccea’s satellites may not have been connecting the ethernet to the planet’s denizens, but their glowing forms did give light to the rooftops. She gazed upward. She thought she could make out Time Gate 8 …

Light to the east caught her eye, and she saw what looked like a meteorite falling to earth. Noa’s jaw hardened. A ship that had tried to leave? A Guard vessel shot down by Time Gate 8’s defenses? Gritting her teeth, she focused on the mission at hand. In her mind, she pulled up her map to Kenji’s house and let it flicker behind her eyes—it was in a building across from this very townhome complex. There were four streets she’d have to cross between there and here, but she could make it. She carefully began making her way across the roof. It had a slight grade to let the winter rains drain off, and between each unit in the complex there was a short wall as high as her hip. The Manuels had toys still strewn across their roof and a hammock. Treading lightly, she climbed over the first wall. The Manuels’ neighbors had small potted trees in giant planters, and a vegetable garden in neat boxes. She skirted between the plants, hopped over the next wall, and loped toward the next, her breathing getting ragged and fast too quickly. She was approaching the next wall between townhomes when a familiar voice whispered behind her, “What are you doing?”

The voice might have been familiar, but she was on a mission and her instincts were hardwired. She spun, and would have delivered a kick to James’s lower legs—a kick that she could have followed with a rapid-fire kick to his chin as he fell—if James hadn’t jumped half a meter in the air and missed the first pass. By that time Noa’s brain caught up with her feet.

Nearly falling over, she panted, “Sorry.”

Landing lightly despite his size, James said again, “What are you doing?” His face was as expressive as it was during sleep—which was to say, not very. Remembering his avatar’s smile was like remembering a surreal but happy dream.

“It doesn’t concern you. Don’t worry about it,” Noa said.

James’s gaze shifted in what was exactly the direction of Kenji’s house as the ptery flew. “You’re going to Kenji’s home, aren’t you?” he said.

Straightening, Noa silently cursed the fact that he’d seen her little brother’s location when they were at Ghost’s.

“It doesn’t concern you,” she said again.

James took a step closer. “Of course it concerns me. You could be caught.” His head did that ticky thing. “And then I’d have to find a way to get you out.”

Noa actually laughed; fortunately, almost silently. The camaraderie she sensed between them was real. “Yeah, I’d do the same for you,” she said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”

“Of course I do,” he muttered. His hands clenched at his sides. “I have to. I don’t know why … I wish I did. Then I could kill that part of me, and probably live a lot longer.” He said it in that deadpan voice of his, and Noa had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.

“You’re funny,” she said, turning back to hop over the wall.

“I wasn’t joking,” he retorted.

Which made Noa giggle softly despite herself. “I can hear your eyes rolling,” she said as she slipped along the next rooftop. She felt her spirits lifting. These things were easier when you had someone to crack jokes with.

“My eyes do not make a sound when—” Breathing heavily as she loped along, she flashed a grin at him. He did roll his eyes. “Everything is a joke to you.” He couldn’t smile in the physical world, but his eyes were much more expressive. Maybe making up for the things his mouth couldn’t do? The exaggerated eye rolls and brow lifts were funnier on his too-perfect features. Some esthetic augments wouldn’t be so expressive for fear of wrinkles—not that there weren’t cures for such things—but the barest hint of a wrinkle that came with a frown, a scowl, or a smile was considered a blemish. His candid expressions showed a lack of vanity that was refreshing.

Panting, she came to the next wall between roofs.

“Noa,” James said, not appearing even slightly winded, “I am not well versed in tactics … but I have watched a lot of twenty-first century crime dramas.”

Noa contained a snort at that, but only barely.

“Even if Kenji would never turn you in … won’t the authorities have people waiting for you at Kenji’s house?”

“Of course they will,” said Noa. “We’ll have to figure out a way to sneak in when we get closer.”

They reached the corner of the next wall, and she gestured with her head in the direction of his building. “He lives on the third floor of the mid-rise you can’t see, but is just beyond the fern trees.” She paused to catch her breath.

James was silent. When she looked up at him, he said softly, “Noa, you are not well.”

Quickly returning to a lope, Noa waved a hand. “I know. Still recovering from the camp.” She panted. “You’d think, being so much lighter, it would make it easier.” Without her volition, her feet slowed to a walk.

“No, you’re not recovering. You’re getting worse,” James said, putting a hand on her arm.

Noa jerked her arm away and broke into a lope again. A moment later, they reached the end of the block of townhomes. She attached the top of the ladder to a rooftop behind some enormous fern trees. She half-slid, half-climbed to the bottom, and then peered down the street. “I don’t hear any patrols,” she said.

“Nor do I,” said James.

Noa looked back at the ladder. “Might as well leave it … can probably walk through the rest of the complex.” She inclined her head toward a wall of fern trees that demarcated the edge of the townhome development. Perhaps twice as tall as the townhomes, they obstructed the view of her brother’s buildings.

“Let’s continue on the ground,” she said, heading in the direction of the trees. The street had lamps, but it was an older section of the neighborhood, and there were plenty of trees and ferns to hide among … and truthfully, she didn’t want to scale another roof right now; she was tired. She needed to conserve her strength. She bit the inside of her lip. Was she sick, as James had said? So many women had gotten sick in the camp. Of course, she had to have been exposed to something. She shook her head. Illness had a mental component. She would will herself through this; she could have her breakdown later, on the Ark, once they got past the blockade. Ducking her chin, she broke into a lope again, but she was grateful that she needed to stop and check to see if the coast was clear between clumps of vegetation and shadow.

A few minutes later, they reached the fern trees. The trees were part of a narrow stretch of “urban forest.” Civic planners had put a path down the center of it. Skirting the path, Noa led James toward Kenji’s building.

After long minutes of silence, James said softly, “Who will fly the Ark if you are caught?”

“I don’t know.” Noa panted, and her gut constricted. “Maybe Ghost could share the engineering designs of the ship, and one of the Fleet personnel could fly it?”

“Do you think a pilot could be prepared in less than forty-eight hours?” James asked.

“Maybe,” said Noa, panting heavily.

James continued, his breathing regular, his lope easy, “I’m not a tactical expert … but it seems once the protests take place, it will be difficult to stage them again. At least some of the leaders will be captured.”

Noa only grunted. She tasted bile on her tongue.

James was mercifully silent for a few more minutes, but then he asked in a light voice, “Is it standard military procedure to rescue a single individual at the possible expense of the mission?”

“If that person is of strategic importance, yes. Starmen don’t leave Starmen behind.” Noa said it to herself, to James, and to the universe at large. She could barely hear her own words over the sound of her panting.

“But he is working for the other side,” said James.

“They’ve deceived him,” Noa hissed. “You don’t understand how vulnerable he is!”

She drew to a stop, her locator app telling her they were in the correct place. She went to the edge of the trees. Kenji’s building was across a field of open parkland the size of one city block. She didn’t need an app to know the distance. The city was built on a plan. A block was 500 meters. Between her location and Kenji’s building, there was a playground, a dog walk area, plenty of trees and shrubs, and a “nature walk” that cut a circuitous route through the field. He’d chosen the home so he could be close to nature even in the city; he hated crowds. Now, for Noa, it meant plenty of places to hide.

Her eyes scanned the building and she picked out his unit. Noa’s breath caught in her throat. “I see him!” she said. She didn’t think she’d ever really believe in God, but she did at that moment. She felt so much relief swell in her chest that it was almost physically painful. A part of her hadn’t believed Ghost when he’d said Kenji was still free—she thought it was false data to lead her astray. To lead her here to be captured …

“I see him, too,” James said.

Noa scanned the park. She didn’t see any Guards on the trails. She looked to the roof of the building, and didn’t see any snipers, but James was right. They would be waiting for her inside. So she had to keep her time within the building limited. She scanned the balconies. Maybe she could climb up on the outside; she still had her coil of rope. She remembered James jumping half a meter in the air. If they could just reach the second level, between the rope and his augments, they could make it. She took a deep breath and felt fear turn her limbs to cold lead. Maybe James could make it ... Her hands and limbs were shaking, not with fear, but with exhaustion. She gritted her teeth. She’d made a career of taking action despite her fear. She crept closer to the edge of the field. They’d thought they’d catch her—but she’d steal him out from beneath their noses.

She took another step forward.

“Noa,” James whispered.

She took another step.

“Noa,” James whispered again.

She opened her mouth, about to tell him her plans, when he hit her from the side and behind, knocking her flat to the ground behind a small cluster of ferns just before the forest edge.

She lay in the damp earth, without protest, certain he’d knocked her down for good reason. Her heart beat in her ears, she could see nothing and hear nothing. His weight made her ribs and her lungs ache.

“What are you doing?” James whispered, his voice urgent. “You almost walked into the spotlights!”

Noa peered out over the dark field. “What spotlights?”

“You don’t see them?” James whispered, shifting his weight and allowing her to breathe a little more.

“No, I don’t, get off me!” Noa said, trying to pull herself out from beneath his hovering body to the edge of the cluster of ferns to get a better look. James knocked her flat again.

“What are you doing?” Noa snapped.

He didn’t answer, but she felt his hand at her temple—or his fist, rather—and heard the click of a hard link being inserted, and suddenly the scene before her transformed. Spotlights were sweeping through every inch of the park. They were mounted on the roof of Kenji’s building. Noa’s eyes widened. In the physical world she saw only darkness, but superimposed over the shadows were men in camouflage wearing elaborate eye gear—a lot like night vision goggles from the old military museum. A team of four was moving in James’s and Noa’s direction. They stopped and dropped below a low embankment about 400 meters away. She made out the shapes of rifles on their backs. Noa’s shock raced across the hard link before she could stop it.

James’s voice came in her mind. “You did not see?”

Noa trembled with rage and helplessness. She projected the dark park she did see. She looked up at the spotlights, and mentally cursed in every language and dialect she knew. James was still on top of her, but his avatar appeared just in front of her. “Well, that language was colorful,” he said. She felt nothing when he said it, no flash of amusement, nothing, but his avatar did raise a brow.

Noa let her avatar stand beside his.

“What is your plan?” he said.

Scanning the balconies with James’s eyes, Noa saw Guards there as well. Her dismay slipped across the hard link before she realized she still hadn’t battened down the apps that hid her emotions. “I’ll figure something out,” her avatar said. She hadn’t thought it would be easy.

James’s avatar turned to hers. She didn’t feel any emotion over the link; but his avatar’s brows were drawn, and his lips were turned down. It was strange how alien a frown looked on his usually stoic face. Noa’s avatar looked away quickly and back to the scene before her and the spotlights she hadn’t seen. “It’s light just outside of the visual spectrum,” she mused through her avatar.

In the periphery of her vision she could see his avatar blinking. “Ah … you’re right,” James murmured. “Ultraviolet. I didn’t know I could do that.”

“How well can you see my brother?” Noa’s avatar asked. “Do you have telescopic vision as well?”

The perspective changed so quickly, it was like watching the zoom on a hologlobe. Suddenly, she was sitting down on Kenji’s balcony looking up at him through the glass doors. To her immense relief, Kenji didn’t look harmed, or even nervous. He held a cup of tea; his hand wasn’t even shaking. His clothing was neat and pressed, he’d gained a little weight, in a good way, and his hair didn’t show the telltale signs of fidgeting it always revealed when he was nervous. “He looks good, at least,” she breathed.

“He looks very well,” James said.

Noa’s heart pounded in her chest. “They didn’t incarcerate him because they wanted to use him as bait,” she said into his mind.

“But they thought you were incarcerated—why would they need to do that if you were already locked up?”

“They must have just released him.”

“Then why doesn’t he look half-starved like you do?” James’s avatar said, and she was shocked by the anger in his voice.

Noa couldn’t answer. In the physical world, she struggled to get up, to crawl closer, but James grabbed her, and like the devil on the shoulder in a Luddeccean holo he said, “He never went to the camps, Noa.”

Noa frowned. As though that meant anything. Her mind spun … “Because he’s brilliant … they’d still find a use for him. Especially since they don’t rely on the ethernet, they’d find his mind indispensable. They probably threatened him … said they’d hurt me if he didn’t cooperate. I’ve got to get him out of there, I can’t let them use him!”

“He doesn’t look like someone who is worried about his sister dying,” James said, as Kenji took a neat sip of tea. Before she could retort, James said, “He seems quite safe. By trying to save him you’d be putting his life at risk, wouldn’t you? The men we saw in the field were armed.” He didn’t look at her when he said it. His voice was light, almost curious, as though it weren’t a question of life or death but a mental exercise. “Noa?”

“Of course I have to save him!” she shouted over the mental link, though she remained silent where they hid behind the shrubs. “He’d do anything for me—anything for this planet and his people!”

James’s avatar tilted his head. She felt nothing from him, but his avatar looked doubtful. “If he would do anything for his people … would he want you to risk your life and the mission to save him?”

“He … he … ” Noa’s avatar crumbled to the floor of her brother’s apartment. Behind the ferns, in the physical world, her head fell to the damp earth. She locked down all her emotions before they rose in a deluge.

Kenji had his arm through Noa’s. He guided her through the penthouse apartment on Luddeccea, threading them past the party guests. It wasn’t his apartment; that was below in the same building. This one belonged to someone from the First Families. Noa noted that the furnishings were simple and tasteful, the carpeting below her feet was as soft as her bunk, and there was a prayer room off to one side. A crucifix was prominently displayed on the wall, flower vases and three books directly below it. Noa knew without looking that the book directly below the crucifix was a Bible, to the left would be the Torah, and the right would be a Koran. The owner of the apartment was Christian, obviously, but all of Luddecceans gave respect to the Three Books. The room was empty. It would be in bad taste to step inside a prayer room during a party … which begged the question of why put the prayer room in a central location in the home, and leave the double doors wide open—but First Families always made sure the prayer room was in a prominent location.

Her brother patted her arm, snapping her attention back to him. Kenji was smiling, just a quirk of the lips, but on Kenji that was a sign that he was ecstatic. They reached the floor-to-ceiling windows that were the western wall of the abode, and he said, “You won’t see a view like this on Earth.”

The penthouse overlooked a park in the heart of Prime, the main city on their home world. The sky was crystalline blue, and there wasn’t a rim of smog that followed the horizon. Noa’s eyes roved over the tops of the strand of fern trees that marked an urban nature trail. She thought she could make out a complex of homes between their branches, but with the angle it was difficult to tell. Beyond the homes she saw a few buildings and then …

“You’re right, it’s nothing like Earth,” Noa said … or a shell of Noa said. She had a strange sensation as though she was here, and not here. She was half a being. Her hand instinctively went to the scars on her abdomen, still in the process of healing. At the last moment, she jerked her hand away, and nervously fidgeted with her rings instead.

Kenji didn’t seem to notice. Still beaming, he said, “You should move back here. Exciting things are happening.” Part of her wanted to say yes. To go back to the starship where she and Tim were stationed … had been stationed … felt like a return to prison. It was the walls—the gray industrial metal walls of the whole damn ship, even the room they shared. The small three-meter-by-three-meter space that was their home hadn’t been so bleak with Tim to tease her, to smile at her, or even to shout or scream. Even their fights had been life, their life, and now it was broken. She could fill her half-life with crystal blue skies and verdant green, find a new life here in the place where she had once lived.

That he had made it to Captain in the Guard without being a First Family member spoke volumes about his competence. But Noa couldn’t help notice that he didn’t smile as they approached. “Captain Yon, this is my sister Noa, I told you about her,” Kenji said. “She is scheduled to re-enlist in the Fleet in a few months. You should talk her out of it. She was a hero during the Belt Battles of System 6. She’s a pilot and would be a great addition to the Local Guard.”

Yon looked down his nose at Noa. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Kenji,” he said. His face remained completely impassive. He looked down at Noa’s hand. One of his eyebrows rose. “You’re married … what does your husband think of having a pilot for a wife?”

And this was why Noa could never come home. Yon might have climbed the ranks on merit, he might be able to see the value of people beyond the offspring of the Firsts, but he would still have a blind eye to female talent. Even though, despite his higher rank, Noa had seen more combat, and had more genuine experience than he had or was likely ever to have.

The Captain’s brow furrowed into a scowl. The corners of his lips curled down. His gaze shot to Noa’s rings, and then back to her. Maybe if she said she was a widow he’d give her a look of pity instead of a look of disdain that bordered on betrayal. She really didn’t want his pity. When his eyes met hers again, Noa gave him a tight smile.

Later, when they were back at Kenji’s place, her brother surprised her by saying, “I’m sure Captain Yon will offer you a better position in the Guard than you have in the Fleet.” While she was straining a splash of potent redfruit juice into two mugs of steaming soy milk, Noa looked up in alarm. “Kenji … he’s not going to offer me a position in the Guard.”

“You could have a place like this instead of the tiny one room you and Timothy had on the ship.” Kenji spread his arms, gesturing toward the admittedly expansive two-bedroom apartment. Two bedrooms and a prayer room. Noa’s eyes slid to the cross on the wall, and the Three Books below it. Kenji was an atheist, but he always said he respected the peace religion brought Luddecceans.

“I’m less alone here in all the ways that really matter,” Kenji said, taking a step toward Noa, head lowering and shoulders rising in a way that would be threatening if Noa didn’t know sixty ways to kill a man with her bare hands … Still, she found herself taken aback. She scolded herself. Kenji didn’t mean it like that.

Shrugging, he smiled. “Well, maybe someday. I know here it’s a possibility.” He walked over to the window. “I know it’s hard to understand, but here I can disengage my app and be treated more as a normal person than I ever could on Earth with my app engaged.”

He gazed out the window. “I know you think this planet is backward, and it is in some ways, but it’s also wonderful.” She walked over to him. Turning to her, he said, “I know you face less prejudice for your appearance in our hometown than anywhere else in the galaxy.”

Kenji looked out at the park land as though he hadn’t heard her. In the rays of the setting sun, the lush greens were turning to rich browns and vibrant oranges. “You say you’d give your life for the Fleet,” he whispered. “I’d give my life for the people here.”

The scene around their avatars melted, and they were lying in the dirt, in mind and in body. “No, he’d give his life for this world,” Noa whispered, in the physical world and in his mind.

She took a breath that was ragged and too shallow. By now only James’s arm was laying on top of her, but he moved it, afraid that even that small weight was hindering her breathing. She clutched her head in her hands, dark fingers scissoring the cable that hard linked them but not pulling it out. Emotions sparked across the link, too quickly for him to sort through them all, but anger was at the forefront. “No, he wouldn’t want me to risk it.” She snarled softly. “But I can’t let them hurt him!”

And James remembered a conversation from when he was James Sinclair, the professor, with an older colleague. The colleague had said the only thing that came close to the love for children was the love for siblings. “They can be as different from you as chalk from cheese, they can annoy the hell out of you, but you still would kill for them. It’s just as irrational.”

James was an only child and childless, but he grasped hold of that memory, turned it around in his mind, and decided he had to convince Noa that dying for Kenji would be in Kenji’s worst interest. “Noa, they won’t harm him,” he whispered into her mind. “They haven’t hurt him yet and they won’t hurt him later. You told me he is a genius and that they need him.”

Certainty slipped across the link from Noa. “They do need him.”

“You might make it across the field,” James said, hoping that he was pressing an advantage. “Would Kenji? Is he strong enough to make it … what if they killed him during the escape?”

He heard Noa suck in a breath, and he kept going, giving his imagination free reign. “No, they’d kill us , but they’d be very careful not to hurt him. They would believe he was in league with us, however.”

Noa took another long breath that seemed to shake through her entire body.

“You said he’d die for this world,” James said. “But he doesn’t have to. You can save your world and save your brother—but for now, that means leaving him where he is.”

James slowly exhaled, waiting …

Noa took a shallow breath. “I hate this, I hate this choice … ”

James took another careful breath. He was grateful his app didn’t show emotion. He suspected that, on principle, if she knew just how much he did not want to try and retrieve Kenji, she never would agree not to try and rescue him. As soon as he’d seen the spotlights, the rifles, and the Guard, his vision had gone black and a sense of failure had flooded every cell, nano, and fiber in his being. He’d sorted through his memories, desperately trying to find a way to convince her, and realized she’d only ever backed down from a plan for the greater good. Would appealing to her desire to save Kenji tip the scales and save her now?

He looked at Noa. The sharp angles of her shoulders contrasted sharply with the memory of her avatar’s smooth curves, and also her breathing—

“James, can you look at the field?” Noa said across the hard link. In the physical world, a breath rasped out of her fragile body.

Across the hard link, Noa projected an image of herself, skirting past the spotlights to the first line of patrols, stealing a weapon, and firing until she ran out of ammo … until she succeeded or they killed her. James froze. Her body shuddered, and in the physical world her voice cracked. “That’s what I want … but I … I won’t, James.” As her physical body tensed, her avatar said coolly, “We need to leave here, but if they’ve moved the spotlights or if the teams have gotten closer, we may need to choose a different route.”

James didn’t look out across the field. Noa’s avatar’s eyes met his, and she let sincerity cross the hard link. Words could lie, but emotions could not. She was telling the truth—the vision of her storming the patrol was just a dream—James’s body relaxed just slightly. He looked out over the field and transmitted what he saw.

“They haven’t,” Noa’s avatar said smoothly. In the real world, she shook. He looked down and saw her face was wet. Her avatar continued without emotion. “We need to go back to the Manuels’ before they do move.” In the real world, she ripped some small plants out of the ground and her lip curled as tears dropped from her chin.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to push herself up, but in that breath James heard something that made him grip her more tightly.

“What?” her avatar said. In the physical world she hissed.

“I need to listen,” James replied. Like he had needed to follow her here, like he had needed to pull the trigger in the forest. He pressed his flesh-and-blood ear to her back.

“What are you doing?” Noa’s avatar protested. He didn’t want her to be repulsed, but he had to hear her lungs. Instead of explaining with words, he let the concern slip across the hard link. Her whole body went rigid. She took a deep breath—and he heard a distinct crackle. His body went cold.