Part 7 (1/2)

We don't need to give them any more martyrs.

He knows I'm crazy when I start to laugh.

I walk into the night alone and no more damaged than when I came in.

They'll give me time to think about it. I'm not under arrest yet, but soon, soon, I imagine. I make a game of examining the pa.s.sing cars, deciding which ones might be watching me before I realize there could be a tracer wrapped around my spinal cord.

I find a quiet bar to hide in. Inevitably, Xu finds me.

”Peac.o.c.k.” He lets his hand trail down my arm, feels me stiffen, pulls it back slowly. ”Or should I say, Bernard?”

He grins, but I think it's forced. ”The Army got to you, then?” I just look at him, and he nods once, satisfied.

”How much of a setup was it?”

”What, the other night? I didn't expect to get grabbed. But I saw you, and that-” he gestures to my arm ”-and that-” touches the pin I'm still wearing ”-and you decided to pick a fight with me and I figured, what the h.e.l.l.” He grins again, more honestly. ”I like you, Maker. I want you on my side.”

”There's a name for that. Treason.”

”War. A war against imperialism and greed. What they're doing in South Africa is evil. What they did to you is evil.”

I scowl. He takes my silence as encouragement. ”It's really simple. I've already tainted you. This life-” and he touches my pin again, fingers brus.h.i.+ng my throat, smiling when I s.h.i.+ver and jerk back ”-is over for you.”

Unless I hand Maclnnes this kid's head.

”We can take this to the soft-hearted public. They won't like what the Army's done to you.” He pauses. ”This could be the biggest thing since Somalia. You might even stay out of jail.”

His triumph makes my skin itch. Everybody wants to use you, Jenny. Yeah, well, Jenny may hang, but she won't be used.

”Maker. We can end this war.”

I close my eyes. I'm back in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria. It's not our war, is it? It's never been our war. But then-then whose war is it? ”I've gotta go.” I turn away, walk away; he hurries after me, reaches for my elbow, flinches when I spin. He's afraid of me. That hurts worse than I expected.

”Think about it. What's left for you there?”

I think about Gabe. I think about an oath I took. I think about the metal under my skin, while that skin creeps off my flesh. I think about Valens' smug face, and I clench my fists, already hating myself and all my choices.

I owe the service something. Something for giving me a way to not die in a gutter, to get clean, to get rid of Chretien. I snuck out of his apartment, filled out the paperwork, enlisted at sixteen: two years before they could have drafted me. Emanc.i.p.ated youth, no living guardian to sign. It's not my body, it's theirs. Except.

I still want Valens' polished bra.s.s a.s.s in a sling. And I like this kid. Dammit.

Homicidal idiot kid. But a kid, a human kid, and one with the guts to do something, anything, even if it's wrong. I tilt my head, study Peac.o.c.k's gold-studded face. ”Did you really try to blow up the Prime Minister's car?”

He grins, steps back. ”Do I look like a mad bomber?” Silence like a hangman's rope until he nods. ”We did blow up the Prime Minister's car. We missed the Prime Minister, though.”

”I'll be in touch.” He calls after me and I walk faster, until I lose him in the crowd.

h.e.l.l could be freezing over beneath my feet. A skin-peeling wind wails off the lake and the sidewalk is cold as iron, but the freezing rain has stopped. And at least these s.h.i.+vers feel normal. The service owns my body, my loyalty, but not my soul. It's cost me something, this Army, these wars. And I don't mind the price. I don't mind fighting to keep my home safe. I don't mind the cold, and I don't mind the pain. Oh, Canada.

I mind it when they take without asking, though. But then, they gave me something, too, didn't they? And I was happy to sell myself to them when it was the price for not being sold. I know well enough what you'll do when you're tasting gun oil, when the edge of the knife is on your throat, steel so cold it's hot. Whether you're a scared runaway on a Montreal back street, or a nation eyed by hungry neighbors.

It's not about Canada. Dammit. It's about Valens. Peac.o.c.k. Me. I lean against the ice-sheathed trunk of an unhappy tree and watch the headlights roll by. Peac.o.c.k kills for what he believes in. So do I. The difference is... what's the difference again? Peac.o.c.k thinks he's a patriot. And I bet Valens thinks he's a good soldier too. h.e.l.l, we're all good soldiers. We're just fighting different wars.

My steel hand scars the bark when I pull it away, and I wince. ”Sorry.” Peac.o.c.k is a patriot. And whatever I owe Canada is paid in full by the startled look on Gabe's face as he watched the machine I wear weave like a snake in front of his nose. Except.

Except.

Gabe finds me on a bench by the parking lot on the NDMC campus. ”Happy New Year, Jenny. Aren't you cold?”

I barely look up. ”Is it?”

”It's New Year's Eve and cold. I don't know if it's happy.”

His voice worries me. ”Gabe. What's wrong?”

”I've got a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Mil-Int Major a.s.suring me that if I cooperate, I'll be protected, and they won't take 'I don't know' for an answer. Jesus, Jenny! What the h.e.l.l did you do?”

”I got laid, Gabe. f.u.c.king A.” I cough with laughing, my face down in my hands-the left one cold enough to hurt. He slides an arm around my shoulder and I haven't got the strength to shake it off. I want to lay my head against his chest and cry. I wish he weren't an officer. I wish I didn't owe him my life. I wish I were five-foot-two and pretty.

I sit up straighter and his hand drops. He shakes his head, stares away. ”I don't like the way this country's going.”

”What've they got on you?”

His laugh is as dry as mine. He stretches his legs, spine creaking as he arches against the bench, and he stares upward. ”I told Kate some of what happened to you. She went to her commander. I didn't stop to think-it's all cla.s.sified, of course. The technology they're testing on you doesn't officially exist. I've never heard of some of the regulations they quoted at me.” His voice is so level he could be delivering a field report, and I know if I looked at his face I wouldn't see a thing but professional cool.

I understand as clearly as if it were spelled out on a blackboard. Scratchy smell of chalk-dust, scratchy voice of a nun, scratchy skirt on my legs, and scratchy knowledge in my head. I reach out at first with the prosthesis, stop, touch his arm with my own hand. ”Gabe, I'm sorry. This isn't about you. Protect yourself. Give them whatever they ask for.” Lie.

”The h.e.l.l you say!”

My head jerks up. He stares at me. ”Jesus Christ, Jenny, do you have any idea what you mean to me?”

My heart stops in my chest.

The words come out of him slowly, forced through taut emotion. ”Jen, I...” He tries again. ”Look, Maker, you're a regular guy, right? I mean... you're my best friend.”

I force a smile, certain the pain in my chest means I am going to die. ”You're my best friend too.” The lie is easy. A lie of omission. A lie of protection. So what's his need to know? ”Look-I'll see you later, okay?”

And leave him gaping after me as I walk away, pain like the socket of a lost tooth that I can't stop probing with my tongue.

I'm so cold I'm not even s.h.i.+vering, and it has nothing to do with the winter outside. The door of my inst.i.tutional little room clicks locked behind me. My clothes strew the floor like a shed skin as I stumble toward the bathroom. I tear the cloth unb.u.t.toning my cuff. Clumsy.

Jenny Casey, cyborg. Sweet Mary, Mother of G.o.d.

Kneeling by the tub, I turn the water on as hot as it will go and pour shampoo under the stream, watching the bubbles rise snowy and ephemeral as dreams. I lay my cheek against cool porcelain and wait for the tub to fill.

By the time I slide into the scalding water I'm shaking again. I crouch in the bath and hug my little-girl scabbed skinned knees. Gabriel. Oh my G.o.d, Gabriel.

I lie back, letting the water take the weight of the metal arm, easing the strain in my neck. Constant pain is easy to forget. Like chronic loneliness, you don't notice it until it ends, and then the relief is suddenly immense.