STAR FALL PEOPLE Chapter 30

Sofia: Over the Arctic

(Previous chapter, or start at the beginning.)

The summer breeze in the mountains came straight through the gaping holes in the front side of the house. She had little hair to tease, just a fawny restoration, but the winds tempted her nose with the lilac of aster, bright ragwort’s distillation of sunshine, the satisfying sweetness of rhododendron. It almost concealed the char of the smoke bomb, nearly soothed the sting of the glass shards peppering her face. She could taste her own blood trickling down to her lips. She couldn’t wipe it away because her hands were bound behind her and attached to a similar bind around George Becker’s wrists, their shoulders resting on each other’s.

One of the black-armored commandos sat at the tower of screens—endless screens of data reflected in the man’s white enamel VR eye covering. The other had gone stomping around the house. She had heard cries from the cook, the maid, the nurse, but none of them had appeared. And they had gone quiet. She raged helplessly, thinking of Mama bound to bed by an octopus’s tentacles of tubes.

Please. She’s harmless. She can’t hurt anyone.

She felt her father weeping, his heaves pressing against her back.

“Can you ever forgive me?” His voice was hoarse with defeat.

Was this his fault? Sofia had recovered from the stun of the assault to see two of the commandos dragging Sley out of the wreckage toward that half-invisible helicopter… heard it take off in a whiny burst. Then she and Becker were bound. Initially. the two commandos stood guard until some silent command prompted them to go on their respective hunts.

Was it Sley’s fault? Was it hers?

She didn’t know. Nothing made sense. Was this broken man her father? He had raised her, changed her diapers, wiped her snot, held her hand, taught her to count, whispered encouragements, spied on her, spun untruths, dismissed her despair at the planet with the words return on investment. Who the hell was Sley? Her interest in him had been fired by the rebellion of youth, a drive to fix on something she could call her own…by the raging sores of Becker’s lies, the easy likability of an exotic stranger. But Sley as her actual, biological father… That was a new dimension of difficulty to process.

Sley denied it to the end, swearing it was impossible. But his entire story was unthinkable, absurd. She had believed some of it, so why not believe it all?

Sofia couldn’t, and not just because it was crazy. She didn’t know how she felt about it if it were true. The idea of Sley’s patrimony had taken on a grotesque swerve. For her, and for her broken patriarch, now a weeping man—father in deed if not in lineage, teacher and jealous fool, visionary and rapacious capitalist. His blazing ambition now dimmed. One thing George Becker had never been to her was fallibly human, until now.

“I love you so much,” he said.

She wanted to reply. She moved her mouth but the words refused to come.

The commando at the terminals stood up so abruptly it sent the chair skidding back. The other commando thundered down the stairs. They rushed outside and she heard the whump-whump of the helicopter’s return.

The commandos raised their arms. Their wrists emitted flames. Brrrrrttt-brrrrttt.

“Why are they shooting?” she cried before an even louder roar drowned her words. Geysers of earth erupted around the commandos and they collapsed. A moment later she glimpsed the glass shark hover beyond the house’s gaping front door.

It touched down. The side door opened and Sley hopped out, still wearing just Becker’s flimsy clothes, his tee-shirt bloodied and torn, his bare feet silently touching earth.

“Sley!”

He ran inside, saw they were bound, and ran back out to the dead commandos. Dead—the word didn’t describe what the cannons had done to their bodies. Limbs everywhere, torsos shredded, blood and brains sprinkling the grass. She was crying by the time Sley returned with something sharp and cut the fetters. She collapsed onto him.

“We’re out of time,” he said, unfazed by the carnage. “These are Mang’s people.”

“Markus Mang?” Becker asked, surveying the gruesome scene with barely controlled horror.

“Mama,” she said, but Sley pulled her back and put his hands on her face, forcing her to look at him.

“Get your things. We have to get to the Phanes lab.”

“I can’t just snap my fingers and turn Phanes over to you,” Becker said.

“You can and you will,” Sofia said, keeping her face buried in the crook of Sley’s neck. They were the same size, almost twins if it weren’t for the difference of gender.

“I don’t even know if the jet’s got enough fuel.”

“We’re not taking your jet,” Sley said. “Five minutes. Hurry, both of you.”

“But Mama…”

Sley said to her, “I’ll check on her. But we have no time, do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Five minutes. Go.”

She ran upstairs but halted halfway. The nurse in her track suit and holovisor lay sprawled on the steps, bloody and still. Sofia didn’t know if the woman had been shot or hit by shrapnel or simply had a heart attack, but she was dead. Only the desire to escape made it easy for her to vault over the nurse’s body and hurry up to Mama’s room. Sley was right behind her. “I’ll worry about her. You go.”

No time to dwell on what state her mother was in. Sofia pulled out a backpack and stuffed in her laptop, her passport, her wallet. Headphones, mobile, chargers—her spy stuff, the little snoops she kept around the house. She was a long way from trust.

Amy appeared on her wall.

“Where’d you come from—oh. Father.” He must have activated the AI.

“Is this the last time we’ll see each other?” Amy asked.

“Kind of in a hurry here.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

For an AI her programming was remarkably…effective. Sofia felt she might cry. Not because of her father or Sley or those terrifying commandos. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the presence of lifeless code. “I guess so. What’s he want?”

“To show you this.” Images emerged and weaved across the wall. George Becker lifting her onto a horse. Sofia, six years old, swinging in Mama and Beckers’ hands. Her father at her boarding school graduation.

“The fact that he’s trying to get you to make me forgive him…”

Amy said, “I think he feels desperate.”

“He ought to.”

“Sofe, he’s your father.”

“Ames—no he isn’t.”

The AI looked at her incredulously.

“Don’t give me that,” Sofia said. “You’ve been listening to this house the whole time.”

Amy softened. “Yeah, you’re right. I heard about Uncle Sley…I guess we don’t call him ‘uncle’ anymore. I don’t usually say this, because it’s against protocol, but…this is data my neural network doesn’t know how to process.”

“Can you operate outside of this house?”

“Like where?”

“Phanes Labs.”

Amy thought about it. “I’d need you to release some security measures so I could upload to the Chaincloud. But there’s going to be firewalls.”

“By now you must know George’s passwords.” It was starting to feel normal to refer to him that way. “I might need your help when I get there. If I get there.”

Amy brightened. “So we will meet again?”

Sofia sat at her keyboard. “Tell me what I need to do.”

It took only another minute of following Amy’s instructions.

“I’m going now,” Amy said. She gave Sofia a wink. “See you in Cali.”

Sley knocked on her bedroom door. “Let’s go!”

“Hold on a second!” Anxious, Sofia moved to her bathroom to get a glass of water. She regarded herself in the mirror. Who was this young woman with the big manga eyes? Her eyebrows had grown back her skin seemed to have escaped being cut by flying glass. She leaned in, touched her face.

Sley banged on the door. “Sofia!”

Sofia stuffed a few last toiletries into her backpack and opened the door. Sley had shifted to Mama’s door, which he was closing.

“Sley, is she…”

“We’ll both have to find another way to say our goodbyes.”

“Mama…:”

He grabbed her and held her to him. “You don’t want to…”

She pulled free and opened the door.

Her mother lay peacefully, free of her agonies, unattached to any tubes. The nurse had unhooked her…Sofia felt an unexpected calmness, but she knew it was just shock.

“She needs to be buried.”

“Come on,” Sley said, softly. “This is her resting place now.”

She followed him down the stairs, floating like a ghoul. Her father was by his terminals, unkempt, bleeding, the genetic sequencer held in the crook of his arm. “They’ve got everything,” he moaned. “Everything.”

She hated him all over again. Helen Becker had just died and he was mourning some lost data.

“We have even less time then,” Sley said, pulling Becker by the arm towards the destroyed entrance.

“To do what?” he asked, dazed.

“To cure immortality.”

Did Becker even know his wife was dead? Sofia didn’t feel like it was her responsibility to tell him. Like he didn’t deserve to know.

Sley strapped them into opposite seats inside the helicopter’s cabin. There was another dead commando on the floor; its head was face down, beside its visor, torn off yet still connected by sinews, stalks…yuck. She looked away and found George Becker. She wasn’t sure if her father was staring at her because he was deranged, or if he was looking at her healed skin and thinking the same thing she was.

“Cure immortality…” Becker said.