She projected the classified P2C file and swiped it to him. “You knew their pipes were leaking.”
“Where did you get this?”
She was the one asking the questions, not him. “Why go through such pains to cover it up for them?”
David frowned. For a second, she thought he might push back. Then he sighed with the weariness of someone who’d defended his position many times. “They were among the inaugural admittees under the update to HOME. The leak was brought to our attention after the fact. Given the stakeholder scrutiny, we thought it best—”
“You thought it best.”
“… to contain it,” David finished, seemingly unbothered by Kasey’s outburst.
HOME. HOME. Kasey could have punched something again. Again, all for Genevie’s HOME.
Did you know? She’d rehearsed the words in her head. We went down to stratum-0. We swam in the sea. The toximeters said it was clean.
Did you know?
You didn’t. How could you have?
I killed her, because I was safe.
You killed her so that everyone else would be safe.
Yet when she reached for anger to fuel her delivery, she found a vacancy instead, similar to what was reflected back at her in David’s eyes.
“What if their leak led to someone’s death?” she asked.
“What?”
“What if?” Kasey insisted, and David pushed up his glasses.
“More people are dying because of rank exclusion to sanctuary.”
The skies let loose on schedule, according to Kasey’s Intraface. She couldn’t tell in this room, boxed in by four windowless walls, trapped with her dad. Except it wasn’t her dad. Not the one she’d known as a child. An architect concerned only with his blueprints. Apathetic toward policy and people, working from home while their mom jettisoned around, from galas to talks in every eco-city and territory, promoting HOME, following her calling as David followed his.
What had changed?
One day. That’s all they’d needed, whether they knew it or not, for David Mizuhara to find them sneaking to the sea, to stop them, do more than send a simple message warning them away from stratum-0. To be present.
To care.
What had changed, Kasey realized, was that after their mom had died, their dad had committed himself to her work. He kept her dreams alive while he wasted away as a person, a proxy for their mom. Kasey couldn’t hate him if she tried—and she tried. Tried to think of one last cutting remark. Gave up.
Logged out.
Her consciousness returned to her body in the copterbot. Her breath came fast. Her mind’s eye was cluttered with biomonitor alerts. Her heart rate had peaked to a critical level. Two more minutes, and that level might have flattened to zero.
The foolishness of her actions sank in. She could have died.
Died.
Like her dad had died. And Actinium. The boy he’d been, killed in the crash. His entire existence devoted to rejecting the ideals that’d led to his parents’ deaths. His rage was a fire, yes, but it only burned bright in the darkness of his self-made coffin.
Kasey’s vision blurred; she found tears in her eyes. They weren’t for Celia. Kasey didn’t cry for what couldn’t be changed. She cried for the people who were still alive, biologically, physically, alive, but who were casualties, too. They let the dead live inside them. Their actions were not their own. They were bots, albeit flesh and blood, with beliefs and behaviors rewritten into them like code.
As for Kasey? This rage wasn’t hers. She didn’t need revenge to fuel her. Didn’t need fuel at all. Was that such a detriment? There were plenty of full-fledged humans in this world. An overpopulation, if anything, of desperation and elation, of love and the violent ends it drove people to. There was enough pleasure, and enough pain. The planet was a plenty chaotic place. Kasey didn’t have to contribute to it.
She could choose herself.
Choose the cold, clear sensation on her cheeks as her tears dried.
Choose her version of life.
||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?||||?|||
“STILL UP?”
I ask from the doorway. Moonlight slants through the crack I’ve made, illuminating part of the bed, but not Kay’s face. Her “yes” floats through the dark. I wade through it, climbing onto the bed. She’s lying on her side. I mirror her position, facing her, find her open eyes.
“Can’t sleep?”
Kay nods.
“Me neither.” Every time I try, I see the bots she made. My immediate reaction was horror, visceral and primal. Then that horror turned inward. I never knew Kay was working on these. How did we drift so far apart?