Hwa cocked her head. “You know what I want, b’y?”
“You want what everyone in this town wants. You want a way out.” His eyes lit on her, and for the first time she saw how very blue they were. It was an unnatural blue. Edited in. He spoke in a low tone, so low she had to step closer just to hear him. “Give us a year. Enough time for Joel to finish school here. And after that you can go wherever you like. Do whatever you want. Save the money, spend the money. But the choice would be yours. Your fate would be your own.”
Hwa licked her lips. “I get by just fine,” she lied.
His gaze flicked across the gym. “You could be doing more than this.”
“Like what? Catching a bullet for the heir apparent over there?”
Softly, Síofra shook his head. “No. You see, Miss Go, I don’t want someone who will die for Joel. I want someone who will kill for him. And I believe that someone is you.”
3
Polio
They were inside a diamond. That was the only way she could think of it. It felt like the top of the tower—the sudden needling pain in her sinuses said it was the top—but Hwa didn’t remember Tower Five wearing this glittering crown on its head.
“Do you like it?” Síofra strode ahead of them and gestured at the walls. The gleaming facets moved with her, angling gently so multiple reflections of her appeared to follow along behind her, each more hesitantly than the last. “We had it programmed in months ago. The crystal only just, well, crystallized last week.”
“Your boss have a thing for Enter the Dragon?” Hwa asked. “The old one, I mean, not the reboot?”
“Indeed I do,” said a voice behind her.
Hwa turned. The facets louvered shut behind a very old man. His appearance alone made it difficult to place his age: the skin had the vellum smoothness of a good chemical peel, and he’d clearly never spent too much time in the sun. You might never have guessed he was the sole survivor of a primitive commune based somewhere outside Palo Alto, where they didn’t believe in shots or pills or dentistry. But it was there in his joints, in the places where the polio had ravaged his body and where stem cells and print-jobs had provided scaffold for the repair work. He moved like an old toy. During his media appearances as CEO, he was still charming: a huge smile, a ready handshake. Looking at him now, though, Hwa understood his desire to protect his heir. At a hundred and five, he didn’t have much hope for training up another one.
“Zachariah Lynch,” he said, lifting one gloved hand. It was incredibly warm in Hwa’s. Gold thread, she realized. A semiconductor in the palm. Something to give him the tactile feedback that age had taken away.
“Go Jung-hwa.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Of course. She could only guess at the file they’d developed on her; by now he’d probably read every text she’d ever sent. His gaze shifted over to the kid. “Joel,” he said. “This is your choice?”
Shyly, the kid stepped forward. “Yes, Father,” he said. “Mine and Daniel’s. I really like her accent.”
“Oh, please.” The facets of the room flipped open to admit a man in a suit. He looked a lot like Joel, only his posture was perfect and his hair was cut too short to be curly. Hwa felt Joel take a step back as he entered. “Joel. Come on. You can’t be serious. Look at her—”
“We’re very serious, Silas,” Síofra said, and Joel’s lookalike stopped in his tracks. Now that he was standing still, Hwa realized he was probably a lot older than he looked: the skin around his eyes was too plump, his forehead no longer moved, and his eyebrows were a shade darker than his hair. Also, he was far too tanned. His skin was burnished darker than either his father’s or his brother’s, but it was a hell of a lot more orange than that of the men who worked the container ships. Nothing screamed “I’m terrified of aging!” louder than a mela-nano infusion.
Silas folded his arms and gave Síofra a long look. If pumpkins could glare, it would have looked about the same.
“We’ve already budgeted for additional security personnel,” Silas said, finally. “And if Joel and Father would let go of this frankly moronic notion of sending Joel to public school, none of this would be an issue.”
Zachariah held up a single finger. Hwa practically heard it creak as the joints bent. “Silas, Joel is the future of this company. He’s also the face of it, for young people. It’s important that he get to know the people whose lives we’re responsible for. Especially given our plans.”
“What plans?” Hwa asked.
Lynch smiled. It was like watching the wax seal on a very dusty bottle of vinegar crack open. “I would be happy to describe them to you, after you have signed a nondisclosure agreement.”
Silas eyed Hwa up and down. “This is what you’re looking for in an assistant? She’s epileptic. Or something. I don’t know. And her mother is a prostitute. A prostitute who pays union dues, but still a prostitute.”