Originator (42 page)

“Chocolate,” said Svetlana. “I really feel like some chocolate.” Sandy had to resist the urge to uplink and track down the biggest, richest chocolate gift basket for urgent delivery. And found Danya grinning at her, knowingly.

“You're such a manipulator,” he told his sister, “even with a hole in your leg you're still working an angle.”

“And a pony,” Svetlana suggested. “I'd really like a pony.”

“It'll live in your room and crap on your bed,” said Sandy.

“Maybe a small one,” Svetlana reconsidered. “It can live in my closet.”

“You spoken to Jane?” Danya asked Sandy.

“No.”

“You spoken to Ibrahim
about
Jane?”

Jane was in lockup, somewhere secure. Sandy was pretty sure she knew where. Jane had broken laws and killed innocent people the last time she was in Tanusha. But she'd stayed with Sandy and the kids all the way back to FSA HQ, despite knowing what they'd do with her when she got there. They couldn't be sure all the Talee-GIs were accounted for, and Jane was serious about finishing the job.

“No,” Sandy admitted.

Danya looked curiously concerned. “Don't you think you should? She did save our lives.”

“I know. Talking to Ibrahim doesn't help, it's out of his hands. FSA procedure means she gets locked up, she's guilty of some terrible crimes, and since she doesn't technically serve the League she's not a diplomatic prisoner either.”

“But she helped us,” said Svetlana, also concerned.

Sandy smoothed back the girl's hair. “Don't worry about it, Svet. I haven't given up on Jane. I'll help her. I just can't do it now.”

“Sandy,” said Kiril, “can Jane come and live with us? I mean, if she doesn't have to go to jail? She is kinda your sister.”

“Truth?” said Sandy. They nodded. “I don't trust her. I know what her mission is this time, or what she thinks it is. But she was brainwashed once, maybe she can be again. Who knows what she'll think in another few months or years. And, to be honest, I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy her company so much that I want her around permanently. She's not a bundle of laughs.”

“No,” Danya agreed. “She's a mess. Like us.”

Sandy was surprised. Her kids didn't form attachments to people lightly, or quickly. Except, it seemed, in this case. The main reason she wanted to limit contact with Jane, of course, was her kids. But if
they
thought she should help . . .

Ari peered in the door. Saw them looking and came over. Sandy hadn't seen him yet and grabbed him in a hard hug. Danya and Kiril followed, to Ari's surprise. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Sorry I couldn't get down sooner, kinda caught up. Vanessa too, says she didn't want to get in your way.”

“Oh, I'll get to Vanessa,” said Sandy with a smile. “Gonna need her soon.”

Ari gave her a wary look and leaned onto the bed to kiss Svetlana. “Hey, there, Svetochka. Cats finally tagged the little mouse, huh?”

Svetlana smiled. “Yeah, but you should see the cats.”

Ari grinned, taking a seat on the neighbouring bed. “Yeah. I guess Sandy skinned 'em.”

“
Slaughtered
them,” Svetlana corrected, with a cold edge that gave Sandy a shiver. “I wish I was a GI.”

“I think you're perfect just how you are,” said Sandy. Which was a parental cliché if ever there was one, but she didn't know what else to say. And it was true. “Where's Ray?”

“Oh, somewhere about,” said Ari, unconcerned. He looked tired and unshaven but had showered somewhere along the way. And his eyes darted a little more than usual, distracted. Focusing on a far wall as he talked. “Keeping her new buddies company. They all adopted her, all the GIs here. She saved about five wounded guys, took charge of some of the booby traps they'd set when a few of them were shot and couldn't get to them. And flooded a couple of floors with the fire systems so the damn Talee would make splashes when they moved, gave away their opti-cam. She's amazing.”

Sandy smiled. “She is. I'm glad she's okay.”

“You heard Kiet didn't make it?”

The smile vanished. “Yeah. And some real good kids I had big plans for. I'm getting sick of us GIs getting killed saving the Federation's ass, and no one giving a fuck about our opinions afterward.”

“That sounds just like Kiet,” Ari said sombrely.

“Exactly. You heard our latest Talee theory?”

“That Cai's GIs are the ones that survived the catastrophe and brought organics back from extinction?” A faint smile, incredulous. “That's . . . that's pretty screwball, even for you. No way of knowing if it's more than a guess.”

“You don't like it?”

“You kidding? I love it. It explains everything . . . that's why I don't trust it, it sounds too much like the kind of science fiction stuff I read when we were . . .” A glance at the kids.

Sandy smiled. “Yeah.”

“And that you hated.”

“I didn't hate it. I just think that kind of thing's pointless.”

“You know how warped that would've sounded to people a hundred years ago? Humanity's most advanced synthetic human hates science fiction?”

“Advancing technology's a fact of my life, Ari, and not often a nice one. I've got more exciting fantasies.” She grasped Svetlana's hand. Ari looked at the entwined hands and smiled. “But the point of it is, synthetic Talee have a special place in their society. And if I'm right, and if it explains Cai's distrust of his fellow Talee, it means he thinks they're prone to going off the rails, psychologically.”

“And you think organic humanity's doing the same thing,” Ari completed. She had his full attention now, intense but cautious, like he wasn't prepared to say everything he thought. “Speaking of warped SF plots, you know how much like one this line of reasoning could get?”

Sandy nodded. “I know. But Ari, look around you. Humanity opened a can of worms when the League borrowed Talee tech they knew nothing about and started using it—it got them artificial people it didn't know how to raise responsibly, and uplink tech that started driving League society crazy. And that's caused so many repercussions, and so far it's been up to GIs to save the Federation's ass from those repercussions—twice now, if you count Operation Shield.”

“Three times,” Danya added. “It was you that uncovered the whole thing in Droze. Federation wouldn't know about it if it weren't for you, and Kiet and Rishi, and Gunter.” All of whom were now dead, fighting the Federation's war, with little thanks from the Federation.

Sandy nodded firmly. “And right now, the organic Talee are after Pantala, if Takewashi's right, and we need to stop them. But with the current political mess here, it's not going to happen if we leave it up to business-as-usual.”

“You've got a plan,” Ari observed, with something between anxiety and excitement.

“I might.”

“
Kiri, are you ready?
”

“
I think so. Does it hurt?
”

“
No. I can see all of your construct readings, I think it should work. Here we go
.”

The empty dark of cyberspace faded to light and then resolved into colours and shapes. Yellow sand. Vast stone walls. They were standing in an arena. It stood huge and high about them, a great oval of seats and columns. All empty of people, save for several swarthy men in old robes, sweeping the sand flat.

Sandy looked and found Kiril beside her. He gawped up at the huge stadium around him, much like the great sporting stadiums of Tanusha, only two and a half millennia older. “Woah! Where are we?”

“This is the Colosseum,” Sandy explained. “It's in a city on old Earth called Rome. It's still standing today, but it's all ruins. This is how it looked twenty-five hundred years ago.” Watching Kiril carefully for any dizziness or disruptive link but seeing none.

“Did they play football here?” He spun about in slow circles at rows of empty stone benches. A few cleaners swept the aisles with whisk brooms.

“Football hadn't been invented then. They had gladiators instead. They fought each other for sport, with all kinds of weapons.”

“For
sport?
No
way!
Did they kill each other?”

“Yes. About one in ten of the times they fought, someone died. Or that's what I read.” It was an oversight not to have introduced Kiril to this history yet. But then Danya's concept of history was one war after another, and she'd hoped to expose them to more cheerful things first. “It was like religion to the Romans, they believed that fighting was like praying to the gods. Rome was
the most powerful empire ever, for about five hundred years. Much of what we understand about modern civilisation started with them.”

A distortion in the air nearby, resolving into human form. An outline, then texture, and finally colour, as Ragi appeared. He wore a white toga with embroidered hems, and both of his hands were functional.

“Ragi!” said Kiril, very excited, and ran to him. “Ragi, this place is huge! How did they build it so big two thousand years ago! Ragi, what are you wearing?”

“Well,” said Ragi, with an offhanded shrug, “I figured ‘when in Rome.'” Sandy smiled, considering his outfit. “A history lesson for small boys. This is called a toga, Kiril. Romans wore them on formal occasions, like we wear suits.”

“Can you make me wear a toga?” Kiril looked back and forth between the adults. “Please! You can make me a smaller one, right?”

Ragi looked at Sandy. Sandy shrugged. “His connection's amazingly stable. Go ahead.”

Kiril's form blurred for a moment, then flowed out to make a toga. Kiril stared at it, arms spread wide. Then laughed and jumped around in it. Sandy repressed a grin, hand to her mouth. He'd been traumatised a moment ago. Kids were amazing. He was amazing.

Kiril stopped jumping, alarmed at that sensation. “But I'm not wearing anything underneath!” he accused Ragi.

Ragi smiled. “You wanted a proper toga, kid.” And he bared his chest beneath his own toga, to show he wore the same. Kiril laughed. “Want a toga, Sandy?”

“After second century BC only prostitutes wore togas,” Sandy told him archly. “Women wore stolas; I'm not big on stolas.”

“What's a prostitute?” asked Kiril.

“Whores.”

“Oh,” said Kiril, then laughed. He knew what
that
was, as any Droze street kid would. “Yeah, don't call her a whore, Ragi, she'll pull your arms off. Hey, where does this go?” He ran to the great entrance to the arena, sandals flapping.

“Incredible,” said Ragi, watching him. “Seamless integration of upper-and lower-level functions. Extraordinary technology. It works better
because
he's so young, it's adapting as his brain adapts.”

“If we put that in the brains of all the new kids in the League,” Sandy said sombrely, “we'll change human evolution more in one move than anything since the invention of farming.”

“Maybe,” said Ragi. “But humans have been self-evolving for so long, it seems a logical next step. And who better to supervise it than us synthetics?”

Another blurring, and Poole appeared, in jeans and T-shirt. Clothes were a personal choice in a VR space like this, chosen at the entry portal. He looked around and squinted up at the far stands. “Great. Sandy and her Roman fetish again.”

“Hey, Poole!” yelled Kiril from under the great entry arch. “Where do you think this goes?”

“No idea, Kiril. How do you like VR?”

“I love it! But it feels funny, the colour's not quite right and everything's a bit . . . I dunno.”

Amirah appeared, then Jane. Amirah blinked around, then at Jane. And looked at Sandy, pointing at Jane, eyebrows raised. “You can get a stable VR matrix to reach her in isolation?”

“Such is my kung fu,” Sandy confirmed. “Or Ragi's, rather. HQ might spot it, but I doubt it. I don't especially care at this point.”

Jane looked around, hands on hips. “Nice spot. Needs some decoration though. Ragi, didn't they have training weapons or something?”

Dummy posts appeared in the sand, person-sized and scored with slice-marks. Alongside them, wooden racks with swords, tridents, and shields. Kiril came running back over, eyes wide.

Poole took up a trident and hefted it. “Much better,” he said, and hurled it at a post. It stuck with a thud and quivered. Jane took up a short sword and twirled it. Amirah looked over the new setup distastefully and walked to Sandy, bundling her untidy hair with both hands.

“Ragi, I need a hairpin,” she remarked. “Something period?” It appeared in the air before her and immediately fell. Amirah snatched it with lightning reflexes and pinned it to form a hair bun. “Thank you. Hello, Kiril! How are you?”

She knelt to give the boy a hug and kiss. “Hi, Ami. Did the gladiators fight with these weapons?”

“Oh, I don't know, Kiril. I'm just a poor twenty-sixth-century synthetic
person, and not an especially high-designation one either. Ask Sandy, she knows everything.”

“They did,” Sandy confirmed. “That one Jane's holding is called a gladius. They'd use that with a shield, otherwise it's too short to defend with.”

“Yeah,” said Jane, putting the sword back and looking at other weapons. “I don't think this was my period. I think I'm more an eighteenth-century claymore girl.” Sandy and Poole looked at each other. So Jane knew a little history too. If only about weapons. “I think one of us could have taken out an entire legion with a claymore.”

“Don't be so sure,” said Ragi, eyeing the weapons but not touching. “They lived a long time ago, but they weren't backward. If we ever have an apocalypse here and have to rebuild with stone and wood, I'd much rather have a bunch of Romans than Tanushans. We're quite helpless without our technology.”